After a questionable awarded assist to put the Maple Leaf prospect's streak to 61 games, even the Leafs acknowledge it has loomed over him as a player and may have led to some regression in his game.
Going into the London Knights' game Friday night, Easton Cowan had a 62-game regular-season point streak going. No junior hockey player has ever done that before.
However, it will not be recognized as a record by either the Ontario League or the CHL because it has spanned over two seasons. When Mario Lemieux set the CHL mark of 61 straight games with the Laval Voisins of the Quebec League in 1983-84, it was within the same season. The same went for Doug Gilmour when he set the OHL mark (55 straight games) with the Cornwall Royals the season prior to that.
But, if you look at the replay below, you can see why some people believe Cowan should not have been awarded the assist that tied him with Lemieux. There is the possibility it touched teammate Jacob Julien's stick first, which would negate Cowan's assist. For the record, Julien claims he didn't touch the puck. But what is the kid going to say? "Yeah, I touched it, so the streak is over."
There's also the matter that the goalscorer, Landon Sim, actually touched the puck himself before getting it to Knights' defenseman Jared Woolley, who shot the puck before Sim scored on the rebound. But that's the official scorer's call and critics can't even claim he got hometown treatment because the game was in Kitchener.
What might be more concerning is that the team that drafted him in the first round of the 2023 draft believes, as you'll see in the video below, that the streak has caused him to perhaps get back to some less-than-desirable junior habits and has become a distraction.
Here's more in today's video column:
(Don't see the video? Click here.)
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