{"id":748589,"date":"2026-06-20T02:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T02:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/748589\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T02:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T02:45:08","slug":"maple-leafs-notes-knies-centers-rielly-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/748589\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs Notes: Knies, Centers, Rielly \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking with media today following the acquisition of defenseman Darren Raddysh<\/a>, Maple Leafs GM John Chayka was asked about the looming fate of winger Matthew Knies<\/a>.\u00a0 Believed to have been dangled before the trade deadline in March, is he still in play?\u00a0 Chayka told reporters including Terry Koshan of the Toronto Sun<\/a> that while anything is possible, moving the 23-year-old is \u201cnot probable\u201d.\u00a0 Knies had a career year in 2025-26, posting 66 points in 79 games despite playing through an injury toward the end of the season.<\/p>\n

With five years left on his contract at a $7.75MM AAV, it\u2019s easy to see why teams around the league would be interested in Knies.\u00a0 A big top-line winger doesn\u2019t come available too often and there\u2019s no doubt that he would command a significant return.\u00a0 On the other hand, he\u2019s also the type of core player that Toronto should be building around, especially since he\u2019s signed for another half-decade and is in his prime.\u00a0 While he\u2019s the type of player who could get enough in return to restock their cupboards, today\u2019s acquisition of Raddysh cements the plan that they\u2019re looking to get back to the postseason right away.\u00a0 That\u2019s a lot harder to do without Knies than with him.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Chayka also noted to Koshan and other reporters that he sees the center position as \u201can area of opportunity\u201d.\u00a0 With John Tavares<\/a> looking like a candidate to shift to the wing, the injury uncertainty around Max Domi<\/a>, and the departures of Nicolas Roy<\/a> and Scott Laughton<\/a> at the trade deadline, Toronto\u2019s depth down the middle has certainly taken a hit.\u00a0 Of course, many teams are going to be looking for upgrades at the center spot this summer but the Maple Leafs will be among them.<\/p>\n

With Raddysh\u2019s acquisition today, that will only further fuel speculation about Morgan Rielly<\/a>\u2019s future with Toronto.\u00a0 The 32-year-old has spent his entire 13-year NHL career in a Maple Leafs uniform but has started to slide down the depth chart a bit.\u00a0 With a $7.5MM AAV for four more seasons, he also carries a big price tag that he hasn\u2019t quite lived up to lately.<\/p>\n

Rielly, of course, has full no-trade protection, so if he is going to move elsewhere, he has to sign off on it first.\u00a0 To that end, The Athletic\u2019s Chris Johnston noted in a TSN appearance<\/a> that there has been a bit of progress in terms of trying to find the veteran a new team.\u00a0 His agent, J.P. Barry, has been working with the Maple Leafs to help try to facilitate things.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no word on how much longer it might take for a deal to materialize and it could go a couple of ways.\u00a0 We\u2019re likely to see an uptick in trades leading up to the draft as is often the case and a team could look to get a head start on the market by swinging a trade for Rielly.\u00a0 Alternatively, interested teams may prefer to see how things go at the start of free agency first and then look at Rielly as a fallback plan.\u00a0 If that\u2019s the case, this file could drag out for a while yet but it certainly looks like he\u2019s going to be playing elsewhere next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking with media today following the acquisition of defenseman Darren Raddysh, Maple Leafs GM John Chayka was asked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,46787,48555,82,746],"class_list":["post-748589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-matthew-knies","tag-morgan-rielly","tag-sports","tag-toronto-maple-leafs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}