Not that many people outside of draft analysts knew who Easton Cowan was 15 months ago. It made the Toronto Maple Leafs’ selection of him at 28th overall in the 2023 NHL Draft all the more surprising, especially since he had been ranked as a late-second-rounder or early-third-rounder by said draft analysts. Fast forward to the present day, and Cowan is doing a lot of heavy lifting to ensure he and the Leafs’ prospect pool is talked about.
One of the people talking about him is The Leafs Nation’s Steven Ellis, who released his Top-75 NHL-affiliated prospect rankings over at our sister company Daily Faceoff. Cowan came in ranked at 35th on Ellis’ top-75 rankings, which was led by San Jose Sharks No. 1 overall pick Macklin Celebrini, Philadelphia Flyers prospect Matvei Michkov, and Montreal Canadiens prospect Ivan Demidov rounding out the top-three.
Here is what Ellis had to say about Cowan in his rankings:
“Just about everyone was shocked to see the Leafs take Cowan at No. 28 in 2023, only to watch him take home both the OHL regular season and playoff MVP titles. Cowan had an OHL-record 42-game point streak and capped the year off with an incredible 15 points in just four championship series games. Between his OHL results, which were highlighted by a league title, and a spot on Canada’s World Junior team, Cowan has shown why the Leafs made the right call taking him when they did. He looks stronger, smarter, and more engaged at both ends, to the point where I think he’ll make a real case to start the season with the Maple Leafs.”
On the topic of Cowan making the Maple Leafs out of training camp, his trainer, Trevor Williams, recently spoke to TSN’s Mark Masters about his client’s offseason training and how he determined he is to make the NHL this season.
“It’s so hard to kind of guess and say where he’s going to end up, but just the size that he’s put on, he’s definitely capable,” Williamson said. “His maturity is there, his thought process is there, his attitude is 100 percent there, and his work ethic is going to be with the top guys on the team no matter where he ends up. I think he definitely could, he’s ready. The skill, the maturity, the decision-making. Mark Vokes is our on-ice skill development guy with Epic, and he is very impressed with Easton, very impressed. Picks up everything. We work on a lot of, different skills, different tools, and he’s like ‘Easton just picks things up very quickly and if he’s bad at it, he will work harder than anybody to kind of get good at it.’ So yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”
Cowan finished his sophomore OHL season with 96 points in 54 games including a franchise-record-setting 36-straight games with a point, which carried into the playoffs for a total of 43 games in a row with at least one point. He finished his playoff run with 34 points in 18 games. You can read Ellis’ full top-75 rankings here.
