Insider Reports Bad News for the Maple Leafs: Matthew Knies Update from Practice Raises Concerns
The Toronto Maple Leafs got more unfortunate news as Matthew Knies was not seen practicing on Friday, as the injuries start to mount.
It's been a rough few weeks for the Toronto Maple Leafs to say the least.
With injuries to Auston Matthews and Max Pacioretty already big enough, they've lost Max Domi, David Kampf, and had Matthew Knies knocked out of their last game.
There was no status on Knies and it was a positive to see him leaving to the locker room under his own power, but he did not return as concerns started to grow.
Well, Toronto has give fans an update on their star power forward, and it's not good reported David Alter of The Hockey News on his X account Friday.
Only one can imagine what upper-body could be (and given players wanting to keep things secret, we may never know) but the way Knies was shaken up looks like a potential concussion.
Knies being absent from practice is a worrying indicator that something serious could be wrong.
The NHL does have a concussion protocol which prohibits physical activity for up to 48 hours, which places the timeline perfectly with his hit and subsequent absence so it could also just be a case of the team being cautious.
Unfortunately for Toronto, Knies has officially been ruled out for Sunday's game against Utah.
Arguably, what was more controversial about the whole ordeal was the fact that Whitecloud was initially assessed a major penalty, but upon referee review, it was overturned and Toronto bizarrely ended up on the penalty kill.
We touched on the reasoning as to why the league decided against punishment, but it doesn't excuse the fact that a very reckless player threw a reckless hit at a young player's head. If Knies is out for a bit, so should Whitecloud.
Toronto just experienced their own punishment recently, as Ryan Reaves was suspended five games for his hit on Darnell Nurse, as Toronto fans grew irate at the disrespect and mistreatment of its club by the NHL.
With Toronto seemingly dropping like flies every day, it's tough to see Toronto keeping their momentum especially without several key pieces and missing essentially half their forwards.
It relies now on Mitch Marner, John Tavares, Bobby McMann, and William Nylander to take charge as the veteran forwards to lead the younger players to success.
Fraser Minten and Nikita Grebenkin should get an extended look, and it's time for certain players like Nick Robertson and Pontus Holmberg to step it up and start producing. Holmberg recently scored his first of the season, and Toronto needs him to keep it going.
Heading forward, Toronto has a tough schedule with Utah, Florida, and Tampa Bay as their next three games, and while it's been impressive to see the team be so strong with so many weaknesses, it's not sustainable.
It's truly unfortunate to see Knies out, and all Leafs fans can hope for is that he's just taking an extra day to shake the cobwebs off, and nothing the team needs to hide from them once again.
