Matthew Knies is still a Maple Leaf, but a wild trade deadline rumor tied to the Canadiens refuses to die Thursday night.
Insider Chris Johnston addressed it directly through the NHL Rumour Report account, and his answer raised more questions than it settled.
The story going around claims Montreal and Toronto worked out a deal for Knies but filed it at 3:01, one minute past the trade deadline cutoff.
Johnston says he's led to believe that late filing story isn't true.
But here's the twist. He also says he can't rule it out completely, because people he respects are telling him it did happen.
That's about as murky as an NHL rumor gets. Johnston referenced hearing the claim discussed on the Steve Dangle Podcast on June 22.
Chris Johnston: Re Matthew Knies/Canadiens deadline rumour: I'm led to believe the 3:01 [late filing] story isn't true, but I can't say-because there's people I respect that are saying it is true.
Knies posted 66 points on 23 goals and 43 assists across 79 games this season, carrying a cap hit of 7,750,000 dollars for Toronto.
Why this rumor made no sense on paper
His production dipped late, with 7 points in his last 10 games and a minus-12 stretch that lines up with Toronto's collapse down the stretch.
The Maple Leafs finished 32-36-14 for 78 points, a minus-46 goal differential, and they were riding a seven-game losing streak to close the year.
Montreal finished with 106 points and a plus-27 differential under head coach Martin St-Louis, a gap that makes any Knies-for-Montreal framework hard to picture.
Toronto also lost three of four meetings against Montreal this season, including a shootout loss and a 1-3 defeat in March.
Would Kent Hughes really need to bend a deadline rule to pry Knies away from a team he already had the Canadiens' number against? Doesn't add up.
Here's Bob's take. If two respected voices in this business can't agree on whether a trade got filed a minute late, something in the reporting chain is broken, and that should bother people more than the rumor itself.
Nobody has produced a name, a source, or a document. Just a timestamp that either matters enormously or means nothing at all.
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Knies remains under contract in Toronto heading into an offseason that already has enough noise attached to it. This rumor isn't going away just because Johnston pumped the brakes.
Do you believe the Matthew Knies to Canadiens deadline rumor is true?
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