Toronto Maple Leafs rookie Easton Cowan enjoyed the most exciting moment of his NHL career on Saturday when he scored his first NHL goal in Philadelphia.
This was no cheapie either. It was a beauty.
SAVE A HORSE, SCORE A COWBOY!!!! 🤠@OREO | #LeafsForever pic.twitter.com/uVFqWiz9pu
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) November 2, 2025
Two nights later, Cowan nabbed a starting spot next to John Tavares against the Pittsburgh Penguins as well as a gig on the Maple Leafs’ struggling No. 1 power-play unit. It didn’t go well for him, but more so the team, and by the third period of Monday’s night game, Cowan was barely playing for head coach Craig Berube. The 20-year-old drew only three shifts in the final 20 minutes and finished with under 11 minutes total, the second fewest minutes he’s logged so far as a Leaf.
And now, with the imminent return of Scott Laughton and Steven Lorentz from injury, Cowan is slated to be on the outside of the lineup entirely when the Leafs host the Utah Mammoth on Wednesday night.
It would be the fourth time he’s been a healthy scratch in 14 games.
Which brings us to a question that management has to be pondering right now: Is the NHL the best place for its No. 1 prospect right now?
Part of this is just about numbers. The Leafs suddenly have 15 healthy forwards, with Calle Järnkrok and Sammy Blais also looking like extras at the moment.
There’s no need to keep that many forwards around, especially if it comes at the cost of a) keeping an extra defenceman around and more importantly, b) keeping Cowan in the NHL when he isn’t a firm part of Berube’s plans.
The choice may well come down to sending Cowan to the Toronto Marlies, waiving Blais, or holding onto only six defencemen (until the team heads out on the road next week).
An assignment to the Marlies would be no indictment on the start of Cowan’s NHL career. It’s been as up and down as it should be for someone as young and inexperienced as Cowan. But there have been plenty of positive moments along the way, including some pretty intriguing, if brief, pockets of Cowan playing next to, and thriving, with the team’s top players — Auston Matthews and Tavares in particular.
Cowan has collected all four of his points at five-on-five. He has as many such points in those situations as Bobby McMann and one more than Dakota Joshua, Nicolas Roy and Max Domi in far fewer minutes.
Cowan has also been unafraid to get in the mix physically: He’s actually taken the most hits (13) of any Leaf forward and thrown the sixth most (13). He has additionally drawn five penalties and the Leafs have won his minutes, both in terms of actual goals (6-5) and expected goals (almost 60 percent).
His first 10 games as a Leaf have actually made him slightly more intriguing to me as a prospect, like the upside might be a tad higher than I thought.
Cowan has had a nice start to his NHL career but still might benefit from some time in the minors. (John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)
But that doesn’t necessarily mean he should stay in the NHL right now.
Not if the head coach is unsure about whether he belongs. And that’s how it looks at the moment.
While Berube is clearly a fan of Cowan — referring to him mostly by his “Cowboy” nickname — he also has sort of been all over the place in his usage of him.
There was the start to the season when Cowan went from apparent lock status on opening night to being scratched in the first two games. Cowan then made his impressive NHL debut playing next to Matthews and played another three games there before he was scratched once again for what Berube said was a “reset.”
Berube then brought him back in to play with Roy on the team’s third line, where his minutes ranged from just under 10 minutes in a win over the Calgary Flames to over 17 in a blowout loss on the road against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Then a quick spin on the second line and PP1 to back on the outside again.
It’s hardly a sure thing that it remains that way for Cowan. It wouldn’t be the least bit surprising to see Berube reconnect Cowan with Lorentz and Laughton at some point in the near future. That was the threesome Berube was so intrigued with in the preseason, the one he scuttled when Laughton appeared to break his left foot at the end of September.
Berube could also slide Cowan in for Matias Maccelli in short order.
Though Maccelli will rejoin the lineup on Wednesday night, he was also scratched for the first time as a Leaf on Monday night and hasn’t won a fan yet in Berube.
But with Nick Robertson emerging recently, veterans such as Lorentz and Laughton back in the mix and vets such as Joshua and Domi unlikely to lose their spots in the lineup, the chances of Cowan playing every single night have diminished (at least for now).
Sitting Cowan out on the regular, or semi-regular, doesn’t make sense, not when every bit of development opportunity is so vital and not when veterans such as Blais and Järnkrok are around to play the role of extras.
Cowan has yet to play a game for the Marlies, and they have a bunch of games coming up, including a back-to-back on the road this weekend.
Cowan could gobble up huge minutes in every situation down there while Berube sorts out his lineup in the NHL. And then down the line this season, whether it’s in a month, a few weeks from now, or after the trade deadline, Cowan can hook back up with the Leafs as a more developed player or perhaps, a more enticing trade asset.
Cowan has done enough in his first month of NHL duty that this doesn’t feel like a must for the Leafs, not like it did with Fraser Minten (who played in only four games before his assignment to the Marlies) two years ago.
It still might be the right move — if Cowan’s opportunity is about to shrink.
