Leafs' Matthew Knies shows off resilience and all-around impact against Stars

Just over halfway through the Toronto Maple Leafs' 4-1 win over the Dallas Stars on Thursday, Matthew Knies was in the midst of a rough night.

The rookie's line with Max Domi and David Kämpf hadn't gotten much going, and the 21-year-old had just endured a horrendous 2:21 shift in the midst of a change alongside Pontus Holmberg and Ryan Reaves that resulted in Dallas tying the game 1-1.

During those agonizing 141 seconds, Knies chased the puck around his defensive zone while the Stars managed seven shot attempts. There was a possible moment of salvation in the sequence for Toronto when Knies got the puck and chipped it away, but it didn't get far enough for a change — and Dallas came back on the rush to score.

Making a crucial error while mentally and physically exhausted could have been extremely deflating for Knies, but what the rookie did in the aftermath of that goal showed off his balanced skill set, as well as his ability to mentally reset.

The rookie had just eight shifts from that moment to the game's conclusion, but he made them count.

His most conspicuous contribution came early in the third period when an acrobatic — and successful — attempt to keep the puck in quickly resulted in a power-play goal from Tyler Bertuzzi.

That was far from all Knies accomplished, though. On offence, his combination of nifty mitts and physical play helped generate some strong opportunities for the Maple Leafs.

At the very end of the second period the 21-year-old started, and almost finished, a rush that initially seemed to be going nowhere by passing the puck through, and skating past, Mason Marchment in the neutral zone.

With just over five minutes left in the game, Knies won a battle along the boards, drew his defender up and dropped the puck back, creating the best chance Auston Matthews got all night:

Knies was arguably even more impactful defensively.

His biggest moment came with just over three minutes left in the game when he blocked a shot and proceeded to get his team some valuable offensive-zone time with the Stars pressing.

His impact on the penalty kill wasn't particularly flashy, but it was notable.

Knies set a career-high in ice time in 4v5 situations at 1:39, despite the fact the Stars only had two power plays. It was only the second time he'd played over a minute, and he hadn't logged any penalty-killing time in 12 of his 16 career games entering Thursday night, including the 2022-23 playoffs.

This wasn't a case of head coach Sheldon Keefe needing a body for those spots out of desperation, either. Keefe was short-handed on defence, but had his full complement of forwards. Knies ranked second among forwards in penalty-killing action. Marner taking one of the penalties affected the balance somewhat, but Matthews barely appeared on the unit (0:04) after playing significant minutes in the first four games.

Knies also set a career-high for penalty-killing time (1:27) in the Maple Leafs' previous game against the Washington Capitals, suggesting they are giving him a chance to try something new.

In this game it certainly seemed to work. The Stars didn't manage a shot when Knies was on the ice, and he made some strong plays at 4v5 including a nice breakout off an interception...

... as well as a confident and composed time-wasting sequence weaving through traffic after another turnover.

Neither play had an extremely high degree of difficulty, but in each case it would've been easy to send the puck down the ice and Knies was successful by being a little more ambitious. He looked like he knew what he was doing, which is impressive for a guy who had just 1:54 in NHL short-handed ice time before the week started.

Knies didn't have a massive breakout game on Thursday. He was quiet off the hop, he made a costly mistake and his overall possession numbers at 5v5 were not impressive. What he did show was the ability to avoid folding after things didn't go his way.

In the second half of the game he made an outstanding play with the man advantage, demonstrated his nascent but promising penalty-killing skills and helped generate quality chances using the size-hands combo that makes him such a compelling young player.

Not a lot of players have all of that in their bag — even fewer can show it all in just eight shifts.