The Philadelphia Flyers have decisions to make on their wingers this summer, and while they do have a logjam, they should also be looking to make upgrades where possible.
It's well established that the Flyers have a glut of right wingers or right-shot wingers, and Matvei Michkov, Porter Martone, and Travis Konecny will be the immediate future there.
On the left, Tyson Foerster and Owen Tippett have played on their weak sides out of necessity, and Alex Bump, Denver Barkey, and Nikita Grebenkin have filled in behind nicely as middle-six options.
The Flyers have good options there, but they lack a clear top dog that they can find elsewhere. Fortunately, the Toronto Maple Leafs, who played ball in the Scott Laughton trade, might be looking to further restructure their roster.
Ahead of the NHL trade deadline, there was a lot of smoke surrounding young forward Matthew Knies, 23, and him potentially being available at the right price.
"I heard some Matthew Knies, and that, to me, is the Maple Leafs seeing if there’s a massive offer they can’t turn down," top NHL insider Elliotte Friedman wrote in a blog post for Sportsnet. "That is the only way I see it happening."
Given how bad they've been this season, the Maple Leafs would sure love to get their 2027 first-round pick back, and they need help at nearly every position.
The 6-foot-3 Knies has 16 goals, 35 assists, and 51 points in 62 games for the Maple Leafs this season and would instantly be in a hit in Philadelphia when paired with the likes of Michkov and Trevor Zegras.
For the cap-strapped Maple Leafs, Knies's $7.75 million cap hit might prevent them from being creative and make it harder for them to divert assets elsewhere on the roster, so more cost-effective options like Foerster or Tippett would be a good starting point.
It helps that Knies does not have any trade protection in his contract, so the Maple Leafs can simply accept the best offer for him at any time.
A bottom-six center group of B.O. Groulx and Jacob Quillan isn't going to get them anywhere, either, and they could assuredly use an upgrade over Simon Benoit on defense as well.
Knies is a talent worth getting the Flyers to consider dangling Noah Cates and/or Cam York, so a potential deal between the two teams could go many ways.
If the Flyers can nab a top center or defenseman in the 2026 NHL draft and acquire an upper-echelon left wing, the rebuild suddenly looks a lot better.
The defense, with or without York, needs a lot of work, and the Flyers can use their horde of wingers to start making something happen this offseason.