Easton Cowan and Fraser Minten both impressed at Toronto Maple Leafs training camp last fall.
Minten made the Leafs (briefly). Cowan did not.
One year later and it’s Cowan, after a monster season in the OHL, who feels like the likelier candidate to challenge for a roster spot when camp opens next week.
How realistic are his chances?
It’s hard to say Cowan is likely to make the Leafs at 19, but he’s got a shot if he can put together an electric camp.
The numbers aren’t exactly on his side. The Leafs have at least eight no-question-about-it locks up front: Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, Matthew Knies, Max Domi, Calle Järnkrok and David Kämpf. Add in Bobby McMann and Pontus Holmberg, both of whom showed promise last season and will keep their jobs barring something unforeseen, and that’s 10. Max Pacioretty, who will arrive at camp on PTO, would make 11, assuming he can stay healthy and prove he’s still got enough footspeed to keep up with his 36th birthday around the corner.
Injuries are always a possibility, inevitable even, but that, in theory, would leave anywhere from one to three spots for Cowan, Nick Robertson, Connor Dewar, Ryan Reaves and Steven Lorentz (PTO), as well as longshots like Nikita Grebenkin and Minten.
Nobody in that bunch can simply show up and get a job. Outplay most or all of those players and Cowan will make the team, out of the gate anyway.
But some roster machinations that are simply out of his control could hurt his chances.
There’s the salary cap for one thing, though those issues do always seem to work themselves out in one way or another. (Will Jani Hakanpää, for example, be ready to start the season?)
Just about everyone in real contention, short of Knies, requires waivers. Take Robertson, for instance. The Leafs can’t simply demote him to the Marlies anymore without exposing him to waivers. If he plays well at camp, and he’ll definitely be motivated, he stands as an obstacle in Cowan’s way.
The same is true of Dewar, who came at the cost of a prospect and fourth-round pick at last year’s trade deadline and was re-signed for one year at $1.18 million in late July.
One, or both, could simply be dealt if Cowan’s play demands a spot and the possibility of waivers comes into play. (Whether that’s smart asset management — getting rid of an NHLer to give Cowan a regular-season audition — is another question.)
Reaves is a different case, obviously. He won’t get the benefit of the doubt at this stage of his career, but he is a respected dressing-room personality currently set to enter the second year of a three-year contract.
If the choice comes down to Cowan or Reaves as the 13th forward, the one who won’t be assured of regular playing time, the Leafs may decide to hang onto Reaves. It doesn’t make much sense for the Leafs to hold onto Cowan if he’ll spend his nights in the press box more often than not.
That’s what eventually prompted Minten’s return to junior last fall.
Lorentz doesn’t have a contract yet, but I’d argue he’s a more useful fourth-liner than Reaves at this point and should be in the mix for a spot at the bottom of the lineup.
Does Cowan need to play in the top nine to make the team? Does it make sense, in other words, to keep him for spare minutes on the fourth line?
It might.
New Leafs coach Craig Berube could put together a young-ish and energetic fourth unit featuring two of Cowan, Dewar, Holmberg or even McMann alongside Kämpf. But ideally, if he’s going to make the team and stick around, Cowan is playing higher in the lineup with better offensive talent.
I’d love to see Berube stick Cowan on Matthews’ wing or, more likely, Tavares’ wing at some point in camp.
Unlike in previous years, the Leafs are playing a manageable six preseason games. Cowan could suit up in most or potentially all of them. Assessing young players in the preseason can be thorny, as the veterans are going at half speed and lineups are filled with non-NHLers. (Remember when Denis Malgin was a preseason star for the Leafs?)
Cowan will need to pop regardless with whatever opportunity he gets. He’ll need to prove he can handle the NHL pace, acquit himself enough defensively, make plays on offence and show he’s unafraid to be a pain in the butt. Do that and the Leafs can and almost certainly will find a way to hang onto him.
It’s always worth noting that the jump from junior to the NHL is gigantic. Even the very best OHL players can struggle to make that leap. Robertson scored 55 goals in 46 games in his last OHL season and is still trying to lock down a regular gig with the Leafs.
Cracking the NHL as a teenager is all the more difficult, especially for someone who isn’t built like, say, Knies. Cowan turned 19 in May.
If Cowan stands out in the preseason, the Leafs could keep the audition going into the regular season and see how he responds when the competition stiffens. They aren’t necessarily limited to nine games either, not if they’re unconcerned with burning a year of Cowan’s entry-level contract. They may be more mindful of the 41-game mark, which would tick one pro season of the seven required to become a UFA.
The Arizona Coyotes gave a then-19-year-old Dylan Guenther 21 games in the fall of 2022 before they let him play for Canada’s world junior team. Guenther returned to the Coyotes for about a month after that and then finished his season in junior.
The Leafs could do something along those lines with Cowan: expose him to the NHL for a couple months, send him off to represent Canada and then re-evaluate his position with the team in January.
What could prompt such a path? The fact Cowan will have to return to junior if he’s not playing in the NHL. Unlike Minten, the Marlies are not an option for the teenager. The Leafs may decide the OHL isn’t the optimal growth environment for Cowan anymore after everything he did in London last season — which was basically everything — and that may just aid his chances of cracking the NHL squad initially.
If, that is, he shines at camp and looks like he might be ready for prime time.
The ball — err, the puck — is really in Cowan’s court.
(Top photo: Lance McMillan / Toronto Star via Getty Images)
