Matthew Knies has become the kind of young winger teams love to dream on: productive, still climbing, and cheap enough to fit neatly into almost any roster plan. After back-to-back seasons of 23 and 29 goals alongside Auston Matthews, the Maple Leafs forward has also found his name attached to a trade idea from Canucks insider Rick Dhaliwal.
Dhaliwal’s pitch wasn’t really about Knies’ scoring touch, even though that’s part of the appeal. The bigger draw, in his view, is that Knies does not have trade protection that would let him shut the door on a move to Vancouver.
On his podcast, Dhaliwal laid out the type of player the Canucks should be targeting: young, cost-controlled, and without no-move clauses. He specifically named Knies, Columbus’ Kent Johnson, and Seattle’s Shane Wright.
“Get those guys under 25 that have no moves. They don’t have no moves, so they can’t block a trade for Vancouver,” Dhaliwal said.
“Go get Kent Johnson, Shane Wright, Matthew Knies. They’re all under 25 and they have no trade protection.
Those are the guys that they got to go get.”
That’s the theory. The problem is that hockey trades don’t end when a player lacks the paperwork to say no.
A player not being able to block a deal does not mean he wants to land in a particular city. And in a league where more and more of the leverage seems to sit with the star, not the team, that matters. If Knies, Wright, or Johnston don’t want to be in Vancouver - which is the basic premise behind Dhaliwal’s thinking - then what exactly is the point of acquiring them?
Knies is the most intriguing name of the bunch because his rise has already made him look like a real top-six scoring threat. That kind of player, with that contract situation, is going to draw attention. Whether Toronto has any interest in moving him is another matter entirely.
The same logic gets even shakier with Wright and Johnston. Wright is an RFA at the end of next season, and all he would need to do is refuse an extension to leave Vancouver stuck.
Johnston presents the same issue. Knies is locked in, but if the Canucks were to land him, he would immediately become one of their best players.
That leaves the uncomfortable question at the heart of Dhaliwal’s idea: do you really want to force one of your top players to be there?
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