The first week of an NHL season always has a way of making everyone too eager, and Toronto is no exception. Two games in, the temptation is already there to turn every hot start into a verdict. For the Maple Leafs, that urge only gets louder when former players open their new chapters with a bang.
Matthew Knies wasted no time making an impression with the Columbus Blue Jackets. In their season-opening 6-3 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night, he scored twice, including the game-winner, and added an assist. It was exactly the kind of debut that turns heads, especially for a player Toronto already knew could play.
Knies is 23 and coming off a 66-point season with the Maple Leafs, so this isn’t a case of Toronto giving up on a player who couldn’t help them. Columbus is also giving him plenty to work with, slotting him into top-line minutes next to Adam Fantilli and using him on the power play. That’s a strong launch pad for a young forward, and it would not be a surprise if he puts together a big season.
Still, the reason Toronto moved him matters. The Maple Leafs did not trade Knies because they thought he was a bad player.
They moved him because they believed Kirill Marchenko fit better with what they were building. Those are very different conversations, and Marchenko has barely started his Toronto stint.
One game, even one great one, is nowhere near enough to sort out who came out ahead.
Nicholas Robertson followed a similar path, only with a different kind of fresh start. He scored twice in his Pittsburgh Penguins debut on Wednesday, including Pittsburgh’s first goal and a shorthanded marker, in a 7-0 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.
He also fired four shots on net. That’s a pretty strong first impression.
Last season, Robertson posted 16 goals and 32 points in 78 games with Toronto, which counted as a career year but still left the sense that the breakthrough people had been waiting for never fully arrived. Now he’s in Pittsburgh and, like Knies, appears to be getting a top-line chance.
A new team can do that. Different linemates, a different role, maybe a little less pressure hanging over every shift.
And that’s where this gets interesting for the Maple Leafs. Toronto had its reasons for making both moves.
Columbus and Pittsburgh had theirs for taking the players on. Meanwhile, the Maple Leafs are left with the part that always comes next: proving the decisions made sense from their side.
Maybe Knies turns into a major piece for the Blue Jackets. Maybe Robertson finally finds the consistency people have been chasing.
Maybe both things happen. None of that automatically means Toronto got it wrong.
What it does mean is that Leafs fans now have two more names to track, and probably two more players to revisit every time the box score lights up. That’s part of the deal in Toronto. The guys who leave never really leave the conversation.
For John Chayka, the calendar still has plenty of time left. For Leafs fans, patience is another matter entirely.
After two games, the former Toronto forwards are already giving everyone something to debate. Now the rest of the season gets to decide what it all means.
In Other News...
Sabres Leave Columbus With Two Big Problems Already Showing
The Sabres opening-night trip to Columbus already handed them plenty to sort through, and not just because the scoreboard tilted the wrong way in a 6-3 loss. Buffalo showed some fight after the puck dropped on the 2026-27 season, but the Blue Jackets were able to keep pressing the pace and make the visitors chase the game almost immediately.
One of the few bright spots came from Owen Power, who was active in all three zones and helped drive Buffalos offense, but the bigger concern was in net, where the team did not get the kind of early stability it needed. With a tough schedule coming up, the Sabres are already facing an opening-week test of whether they can clean up the issues that showed up right away in Columbus. [Read more 🡒]
Blue Jackets May Already Be Moving On From Jake Christiansen
Jake Christiansens night against Buffalo hinted at where he stands in the Blue Jackets defensive picture. Even with Columbus short-handed on the back end, he started with regular shifts and then saw his ice time dry up, a sign the staff was not leaning on him the way it had earlier in the game.
His usage also spoke volumes compared with the rest of the blue line, with Carson Soucy and Emil Andrae getting the larger share of the work as the night went on. The on-ice issues have been there too, from positioning to overall defensive reads, and if healthier options keep coming back, Christiansen may be fighting more than just the game in front of him. [Read more 🡒]
Blue Jackets Just Showed How High The Price Is For Marchenko
Gary Bettmans concerns about no-trade clauses expanding beyond their original intent landed in the middle of a landscape where front offices are already spending plenty of time trying to thread impossible needles. For Columbus, the most revealing part of the conversation around Yegor Marchenko was not simply that another team had interest, but that the Blue Jackets were firm enough in their asking price to keep moving the goalposts on a deal even when the player himself was open to the destination.
Montreals inability to finish the trade underscores how much leverage Columbus had in the negotiations, and how expensive a scorer like Marchenko can be when a team is not looking to sell low. The broader NHL trade market only adds to the sense that the Blue Jackets are sitting on a valuable asset, with clubs everywhere trying to balance urgency, contract realities and limited pieces to offer in return. [Read more 🡒]