Marchenko vs Knies: Three Weeks In, Toronto Is Winning the Trade

The Marchenko Knies trade, three weeks in

Less than three weeks after the Marchenko Knies trade, the early scoreboard favours Toronto. Kirill Marchenko has four goals and nine points in eight games for the Maple Leafs, per ESPN, including a hat trick against Buffalo on Oct. 15. Matthew Knies, who turns 24 today, has two goals and four points in five games for the Columbus Blue Jackets, and three of those points came in his first game.

That is not a verdict. Eight games against five is a small sample, and the contract part of this deal does not bite until next season. But John Chayka made the trade for a specific reason, to add a winger who carries the puck through the neutral zone and finishes, and so far Marchenko is doing exactly that. LeafsLurker said at the time that the trade was a win with an overpay in the details. Three weeks in, the first half of that call looks right.

What actually moved in the trade

The deal was made on the eve of Toronto's season opener. Here is what each side got, per the Blue Jackets' announcement and reporting at the time:

The core of it is simple: a 26-year-old right winger with three straight seasons leading Columbus in goals, for a 24-year-old power forward who had just posted a career-high 66 points. The rest was the price of getting Columbus to say yes. You can see how the pieces sit on Toronto's cap on our contracts page.

Kirill Marchenko has been as advertised

Marchenko has had a point in most of his games as a Leaf, and the Oct. 15 game against Buffalo was his best. He scored three times in his 300th NHL game, the fifth hat trick of his career and his first in a Toronto sweater. The first goal was a between-the-legs power-play finish off a John Tavares feed in the slot that is already in the conversation for goal of the season.

What stands out is how he scores. Toronto spent last season with a top six that won puck battles but rarely beat anybody with speed. Marchenko attacks the middle with the puck on his stick, and the move to Tavares' line before the Buffalo game gave him a centre who could find him. The early returns from that line were the best thing Toronto did all night, until the third-period collapse.

He has also owned his mistakes. After Owen Power's overtime winner, Marchenko said publicly that he lost a step on Power and left him too much room. That is the sort of thing a team that has blown third-period leads to Vegas and Buffalo needs to hear from a new top-six forward. His defensive game is not his calling card, and it never was in Columbus. Toronto knew that when it made the deal.

Matthew Knies: a big start, then quiet

Knies could not have started better. In Columbus' opener on Oct. 1, he scored twice and added an assist in a 6-3 win over Buffalo. He became the first player in franchise history to score multiple goals in his Blue Jackets debut, and his three points tied Artemi Panarin's record for points in a Columbus debut. We covered that debut the night it happened. The two weeks since have been far quieter.

Since the opener, Knies has one assist in four games and has gone three straight without a point, per RotoWire. In a 7-3 loss to Florida on Oct. 13, he played 18:03, had one shot and finished plus-1, per Hockey-Reference's box score. Columbus is 2-3-0, per ESPN, and faces the New York Rangers tonight.

None of that changes who Knies is. He scored 23 goals and 66 points in 79 games for Toronto last season, third on the team behind Nylander and Tavares, with 152 hits. He is a heavy, net-front left winger who makes linemates better along the wall. What he is not is a play-driver who creates offence off the rush, and Columbus is asking him to be a first-line forward on a team without much elite skill around him.

The numbers side by side

Here is how the two players compare on last season's production, this season's start and the money:

Last season, the two were almost identical producers, one point apart. This season, Marchenko has the better start and costs roughly $3.9 million less against Toronto's cap. Next season, the sign flips: Marchenko's extension makes him about $4.75 million more expensive than Knies would have been, for two more years.

Opinion: Toronto is winning now, and the bill comes later

Here is the honest grade at the three-week mark. Toronto is ahead on the ice. Marchenko is producing at better than a point a game, has made the Leafs' second line dangerous for the first time this season, and gives Jim Hiller a right-shot finisher he can put next to Matthews or Tavares. Knies has one big night and a quiet two weeks.

But the trade will not be decided in October. It will be decided in 2028-29 and 2029-30, when Marchenko is 28 and 29 and costing $12.5 million, and Knies is 26 and 27 on a $7.75 million deal that will look cheaper every year the cap rises. Toronto paid for a better player at the peak of his value. That is a defensible bet for a team trying to win now, but it only pays off if Marchenko keeps scoring 30 goals a season into his late twenties.

The details still bother us. Taking Merzlikins' contract and Wood's buried money cost Toronto real flexibility on a cap that is already tight, and adding a second-round pick on top of Knies, Lorentz and Andrae felt like an overpay for a team that was the more motivated buyer. Those costs do not show up in the box score. They show up in March, when Chayka needs room to add the top-four defenceman this roster is still missing.

What's next

Marchenko's next test is life without Tavares, whose status after leaving the Buffalo game with an injury is still unknown. If Tavares misses time, Hiller has to decide whether to keep Marchenko on the second line with Nick Paul in the middle or move him back to Matthews' right side. Either way, Marchenko should be on the first power-play unit every night.

For Knies, the Rangers game tonight is a chance to end a three-game drought on his birthday. Expect him to find his level; a 66-point player does not disappear. The question was never whether Knies is good. It was whether Marchenko is better, and whether Toronto can afford him in 2027-28. So far, the answer to the first question is yes. The second one can wait a year.