Easton Cowan has been on fire to start the 2026-27 NHL season with the Toronto Maple Leafs .
In the first game of the season, the 21-year-old left winger recorded an assist on William Nylander's second goal of the game in Toronto's 3-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens .
In the second outing against the New York Islanders , Cowan outdid himself with a pair of points. He got an assist on Colton Sisson's first goal as a Maple Leaf and scored the second on the power play, which turned out to be the game-winning goal.
To this point in the season, Cowan leads the team in scoring with three points, contributing on all of Toronto's goals but one.
Regarding Cowan's performance so far this season, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman has noted that his stock has been rising within the organization, and that might've nixed the franchise's desire to trade the youngster.
"I think there were a couple of things in the off-season that (the Leafs) were considering that could potentially have Cowan involved," Friedman reported on Thursday's episode of the 32 Thoughts podcast . "And I did hear this week that even before the puck dropped, that Cowan's stock in the organization was way up. And that it was like Toronto's desire to move Cowan has really decreased."
It's early, but Cowan has truly morphed not only into a solid NHL player but also into a difference-maker on the Maple Leafs.
"They're like, ' this guy is a player,' and then in the first two games of the season, the loss to Montreal and the victory over the Islanders, he was one of their best players, I thought."
Toronto's head coach Jim Hiller was early to spot Cowan and his positive trajectory in development during training camp. It was after the first day of training camp that he singled out Cowan as the player who stood out to him the most at practice.
He called him a puck hound , and he's certainly brought that playing style to the regular season. Cowan is fast on the forecheck and eager to strip the opposition of the puck, and has been contributing to the team's penalty kill.
"There definitely is a feeling that Cowan's stock is up even before they started playing, and I think in the first two games we all saw why," Friedman said.
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