Logan Cooley Cashes In and Suddenly Matthew Knies' Deal Looks Even Nicer for the Leafs

During the summer, Matthew Knies made it a priority to get a contract extension completed ahead of free agency, putting the team first to ensure that Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving could begin to plan out how he wanted to spend his cap space to help bolster the team.

The Knies extension ended up being a 6-year pact and carried a much lower cap hit than anticipated.

While most reports suggested that Knies could have commanded in excess of $8M or even $9M per season, when all was said and done, Knies took a team-friendly deal worth $7.75M per season, publicly declaring that he felt the deal was fair for both sides.

His former University of Minnesota teammate Logan Cooley has just signed a new deal himself, according to NHL Insider Chris Johnston. Cooley has reportedly locked himself in with the Utah Mammoth for the next 8 years, carrying a $10M cap hit. No team-friendly deal for the Mammoth.

Another interesting link to the Maple Leafs here is that Cooley's $80M contract is the 4th highest cap hit coming out of a player's entry-level contract, behind Mitch Marner (6x$10.893M out of ELC), Auston Matthews (5x$11.634M out of ELC), and Connor McDavid (8x$12.5M out of ELC).

Knies and Cooley posted similar numbers last season, with Knies scoring 29 goals and 29 assists for 58 points in 78 games, while Cooley tallied 25 goals and 40 assists for 65 points in 75 games.

This season, however, Knies has edged Cooley out through their first 10-11 games, with Cooley having notched 8 goals and 12 points in 11 games, while Knies has found the back of the net 4 times, but amassing 13 points through 10 games.

While Cooley does play a premium position as a center, he may not necessarily be worth an extra $2.25M per season than Knies, though time will tell whether or not that proves accurate. For Cooley, he also committed an extra two years to the Mammoth, so that is something that needs to be considered as well.

With the salary cap expected to continue to rise, contracts are just going to keep getting larger over time, and while Cooley may have been able to wait it out until next summer to have the opportunity to demand even more, I'm sure he's glad just to have this done and to just focus on what happens on the ice rather than off of it.