After a long wait, Easton Cowan will finally get his shot with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
All eyes will be on the 20-year-old when he skates on the top line with Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies in his NHL debut when his team takes on the Detroit Red Wings on Monday afternoon.
His debut is two years in the making after he was drafted 28th overall by the Maple Leafs in 2023, which was a surprise to some prognosticators.
Cowan had just wrapped up his rookie season with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League, recording 20 goals and 53 points in 68 games in 2022-23. The 6-foot winger gained more attention in draft circles in the latter half of the year, which saw him register nine goals and 21 points in 20 playoff games en route to reaching the OHL Championship Series.
“I can guarantee that if Cowan started to really track in November [instead of January], there would have been no surprise [at the draft]”, TSN Director of Scouting Craig Button said. “If you watch how coaches use players you get a very good idea of what they think of the player. For a 17-year-old kid, Cowan was used in every situation by [Knights head coach] Dale Hunter. That is telling.”
Cowan’s major junior career took off after that season and he became a focal point of a Knights team that would win back-to-back J. Ross Robertson Cups (2024, 2025) and eventually a Memorial Cup in 2025.
Cowan finished seventh in league scoring during in the 2023-24 campaign, recording 34 goals and 96 points in 54 games. He finished the regular season on a 36-game point streak and his efforts would lead him to be named the Red Tilson Trophy winner as the OHL’s Most Outstanding Player.
He would go on to lead the league in scoring in the playoffs with 10 goals and 34 points as his Knights only needed 18 games to win the championship. He was awarded the Wayne Gretzky 99 Award as playoff MVP that year.
“[Cowan] was unstoppable and dominated every single area in the playoffs and championship round,” said Button said prior to the 2024 Memorial Cup. “His game elevated from the regular season through the playoffs and went higher in the championship. It’s a rare thing.”
His success continued at the Memorial Cup, recording three goals and eight points in four games, but his team fell short of the ultimate prize when the Saginaw Spirit scored the game-winning goal in the dying seconds of the third period in the final.
Cowan appeared in five pre-season games prior to the 2024-25 campaign with the Maple Leafs, recording two assists before he was returned to London for his third OHL season.
He recorded 29 goals and 69 points in 46 games during the regular season, but once again stepped up his game in the playoffs leading the league for the second year in a row with 13 goals and 39 points in only 17 games as team won their second consecutive league title.
At the 2025 Memorial Cup, Cowan and teammate Denver Barkey tied for the tournament lead in scoring, each recording three goals and seven points in five games. Cowan was named Memorial Cup MVP as his Knights finished the job and defeated Gavin McKenna and the Western Hockey League champion Medicine Hat Tigers in the final.
As a native of Mount Brydges, Ont., Cowan fully recognizes the pressure that a local product can be under while playing for the Maple Leafs. However, he believes that experience, along with his time as a Knight has only prepared him for this moment.
“Obviously, being a Leafs prospect, there’s a lot of eyes on you,” Cowan told TSN in March. “There’s obviously a lot of people watching wherever you go, and it’s matured me a lot over the last couple of years. I think growing up in London has been good for me too.
“But being drafted to Toronto, which was a team I grew up cheering for, meant a lot to me.”
