Easton Cowan on making the Maple Leafs in training camp: 'Up to me'
Article content
Easton Cowan knows where he will be living once the 2025-26 hockey season gets underway.
Now that his prolific major junior career with the London Knights has come to an end, the player regarded as the top Maple Leafs prospect will have a Toronto address this fall.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Easton Cowan on making the Maple Leafs in training camp: 'Up to me' Back to video
Will the 20-year-old have a parking space at Scotiabank Arena to play for the Leafs or will he be making the drive to Coca-Cola Coliseum to suit up for the Toronto Marlies?
The opportunity for Cowan to crack the Leafs’ group of forwards once training camp opens in September will be a good one.
“I have the chance to get a job, and that’s up to me to go out there and show what I can do and play my game,” Cowan said at the Leafs development camp on Thursday at the Ford Performance Centre. “Still a couple months away, so I’m going take every day to keep getting better. I’m just worried about myself.”
The Leafs expect Cowan to take a healthy run at landing a spot on the roster for opening night. That will be just part of the challenge; provided Cowan is successful, maintaining an impact once the regular season starts will be the other.
“The next step for Easton is the pro habits that we talk about,” said Leafs assistant general manager, player development, Hayley Wickenheiser, who is overseeing the camp. “In junior, you can get away with long shifts and lagging, not tracking back pucks.
“Cleaning up those areas of the ice, being able to play on the inside, to play with pace, day in and day out, and just to be physically strong, so that when he comes in, he can handle the grind that it is.”
Cowan’s skills are not in question.
“He has an NHL skill set,” Wickenheiser said. “It’s puck management. What you do with the puck at both blue lines and not turning pucks over in soft areas of the ice, being able to drive deep, take the puck to the net, hound and hunt the puck, which he does really well.
“Over the latter half of his season this year, we saw a really big improvement that way.”
After leading the Knights to the Memorial Cup title, culminating with a win against the Medicine Hat Tigers in Rimouski, Que., on June 1, Cowan, along with a few other players, is not taking part in on-ice drills at development camp.
“He has played over 100 games the last couple seasons, so it was more just allow him to have a bit of recovery time, a bit of downtime,” Wickenheiser said. “He’s going to have a big few months coming up, and this will allow him to train, more importantly, off the ice, put on some of the weight that he lost through the season and just get some rest.”
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Cowan said he will be back on the ice next week in London to continue off-season training.
The Leafs’ first-round pick in 2023, Cowan couldn’t have had a better end to his Knights tenure. After he was named the most valuable player in the Ontario Hockey League playoffs as the Knights won the OHL championship in 2024, this year Cowan led the OHL in playoff scoring as the Knights won the title again, and then was named Memorial Cup MVP.
Little wonder there is optimism regarding what Cowan can add to the Leafs.
“I felt really good with my game,” Cowan said. “Similar to last year, I felt when the games got bigger, I got better. Those are the games I love to play, when there’s a lot of people watching, and there’s high stakes.”
There will be a couple of significant differences for Cowan at Leafs camp in the fall, provided he’s not included in a trade if general manager Brad Treliving puts together a package to acquire a top-six forward (we’re not saying this is going to happen, but the possibility remains).
Absent will be new Vegas Golden Knights winger Mitch Marner, who was a mentor to Cowan, and good pal Fraser Minten.
“That one (the trading of Minten to the Boston Bruins in March) hurt a lot,” Cowan said. “Ever since I got to Toronto, he has been great to me, and he’s taught me a lot, even though he’s only a year older. Wish him nothing but the best. We talk every day.
“(Marner’s friendship) meant a lot to me. Happy for him. Opportunities will open up for other players.”
On a Leafs roster that has some offensive holes up front, Cowan has the potential to put himself in that group.
How NHL-ready do the Leafs think Cowan is?
“Time will tell,” Wickenheiser said. “I guess that’s the question that we all are asking ourselves.
“The money’s on him that he’ll be fit enough and prepared enough, the experience, to be able to step in and play, we’ll see probably very quickly when camp starts.”
X: @koshtorontosun
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.