Why the Chicago Blackhawks likely won’t be in play for 22-year-old star forward this summer

The Chicago Blackhawks’ front office will have plenty of options to pursue in the open market this summer if they want to be aggressive buyers. General manager Kyle Davidson made plenty of moves last summer in free agency to have more NHL-level talent ready to roll on opening night. The 2023-24 squad featured way too many AHL quality players and that showed with the team finishing 31st in the league in points.

Unfortunately for the organization, adding more depth ahead of this past season didn’t change their position in the standings. The Blackhawks finished 31st once again this past year, and landed the third overall pick in the draft that they will use to add another major piece to their rebuild.

Chicago still has some money to spend this summer, and their rebuild taking an extremely positive turn at the end of the most recent campaign could attract free agents to the Windy City. However, an original big time target for the franchise could be off the table after the offer sheet comp levels were officially announced for restricted free agents this offseason.

Why the Chicago Blackhawks won’t sign Matthew Knies

With how well Matthew Knies has performed in the regular season and playoffs over the past couple of years, he has earned himself a nice payday this summer. The left winger is a restricted free agent this offseason, and any team other than Toronto will need to cough up a lot of assets for his services.

Knies likely falls under the category of receiving a yearly salary ranging between $7.02 and $9.36 million this offseason. According to the offer sheet comp levels that were released earlier this week, that would require a team to give up a first, second, and third round draft pick to sign him as a restricted free agent. A team like the Blackhawks are not in a position to make a move this big, even though their prospect pool is already loaded with talent.

The Blackhawks will not be good enough next year to sacrifice a pick that at the very worst will be in the top-10 of what is already shaping up to be a stacked draft class next summer. There are other extremely strong players on the open market this summer that Chicago could make a push for without having to give up this much draft capital in the process.

Matthew Knies would be a game changer for the Chicago Blackhawks

In a world where the Blackhawks’ front office gets crazy aggressive and brings in Knies despite the price tag that comes with him, it would send a message to the league that Chicago is ready to kick things into a new gear. Knies would be a guy that could get the best out of young players like Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar for a long time.

Knies just wrapped up his second full season at the NHL level, and he put the hockey world on notice with his play. The 22-year-old had 29 goals and 29 assists for 58 total regular season points in 78 games. The Maple Leafs are still in the playoffs, and Knies has been a major contributor in 10 games. He has five goals and two assists to go with his +1 plus/minus rating.