Why Easton Cowan Is Being Promoted To Maple Leafs' Second Line And What The Numbers Say

LAS VEGAS — Easton Cowan did not force his way onto the Toronto Maple Leafs’ second line with John Tavares and William Nylander by scoring his way through the first week. He got there by doing the work head coach Jim Hiller has been asking for since the first skate of camp, and by the way the Maple Leafs closed their last game at home.

Through four games Cowan has one goal and two assists, a plus-1 and is logging 14:22 of ice time per night. The goal was the power-play winner in the 2-1 win over the Islanders on Sept. 30, when he also had an assist. He added a helper in the opener against Montreal, went quiet in the 3-2 loss to Ottawa, and put three shots on net in the 5-4 overtime win over Nashville without a point. The box score is fine for a 21-year-old in his second season. The ice, and the coach, are why he is moving up.

Hiller said Thursday that the switch is not a road-matchup call. The reason was simpler than that.

“They finished that way a little bit. Gavin (McKenna) finished with those guys,” Hiller said. “We liked how we finished the game, so it’s just kind of easy for us. We had it at home. We finished the game that way in Toronto. So that’s really the impetus for the move. Until we finished, obviously it was a good night in the end. So, why change it?”

He also said Cowan has earned the extra shifts. 

“I thought he started really strong, and then I probably haven’t played him as much. He probably deserved a little bit more ice time. So we’ll give him another crack. He’ll get a little more tonight, probably with John and Willie.”

Cowan does not plan to play it any differently once he gets there. In a one-on-one before the morning skate, he said nothing changes when he moves up.

“Yeah, my game won’t change. Just hard on pucks, and when I move my feet and making pucks, transition that’s what my strengths come out.” Cowan told The Hockey News. “I’m able to make those plays. So, just looking to keep playing my game.”

That is the job description Hiller has had for him all fall. He does not want Cowan next to those two as a pure skill winger. He wants the forechecker who turns those retrievals into offence.

“He has to be a forechecker. He has to loosen some pucks up,” Hiller said. “I think we all have a vision for Easton. He’s an offensive player for sure, but I think he really can be a guy that provides a little grit on a line, like a forecheck. Track, be above. Just be one of those all-around players. And I think for him to be the most effective in the league, that’s what he’ll turn into.”

Cowan has been pointed at that work since the summer. In a training-camp conversation with The Hockey News, he said he spent a lot of his offseason hounding and retrieving pucks, the unglamorous reps that turn a playmaker into the player Hiller is describing. It matched what the coach saw on the first day of camp, when he called Cowan a puck hound who was everywhere. The summer work, the camp message and what Cowan said Thursday are the same sentence.

The early numbers back the promotion more than the three points do. At five-on-five through four games, the Leafs have controlled about 65 percent of the shot attempts with Cowan on the ice, 53 for and 29 against, and have outscored opponents 2-1 in those minutes, per shift-chart tracking from NaturalStatTrick.com. Most of that has come with Nick Paul and Colton Sissons. Cowan has skated 30:36 with Paul at a 69.8 percent shot share and 26:34 with Sissons at 71.7 percent. The third line has been the cleaner five-on-five group on a team that is 2-2-0 and, in Cowan’s view, should have more than that.

The sample with Tavares and Nylander this season is small, and it is good. Cowan and Tavares have 7:15 together at five-on-five, a 75 percent shot share and a 1-0 goal split. Cowan and Nylander have 6:32, a 62.5 percent shot share and the same 1-0. Those minutes are mostly the finish of the Nashville game, which is exactly the stretch Hiller did not want to break up.

Last season is the longer look, and it is more mixed. Cowan, Tavares and Nylander have been used together for 64:29 at five-on-five across their last 10 common games, a window that reaches back into 2025-26, at a 43.5 percent shot share and a 50 percent goal share. Over the wider pairing sample, Tavares and Cowan have been on the ice for 161:02 at a 51.0 percent expected-goal share, and Nylander and Cowan for 142:25 at 50.3 percent. The trio has not dominated territorially. It has not been buried, either, and Hiller remembered the stretches that worked.

Cowan’s own rookie season, 11 goals and 29 points in 66 games, sat in the same middle ground. He was on for a 49.71 percent shot share and a 47.36 percent expected-goal share in all situations, with the goals tilting his way at 54.44 percent. The skill was there. The repeatable five-on-five edge was not, which is why the forecheck is the roadmap rather than another look on the power play.

Through four games, Cowan gave his assessment of how things have been going. 

“I feel like honestly the home stretch, we had a pretty good home stretch for the start of the year,” Cowan said. “Obviously 2-2, but I definitely feel like we could have won the other games too. So we’re just going to keep building. [Tuesday] was a good comeback win. And this is a good test for us, really. It’s good to bond on the road with the guys, and then also some of the teams that are coming up on the road, tough travel, you got to get used to it. I think it’s a good challenge to start the season for sure.”

Vegas is the right first stop for that test. The Golden Knights went to the final last spring. Hiller, who saw them often while coaching in the West, said a team like this can show you the bar when it is on its game, and that early October is too soon to assume it will be. 

Hiller, unprompted, made a point Thursday of going back to the Nashville game, where Tavares won 16 of 17 faceoffs after the Leafs had lost important draws at the end of the Ottawa loss. “When I see 16 out of 17 on the faceoff, that tells me a guy came in very, very determined,” Hiller said. He called it a pro being a pro, not a fix invented between games.

That is the fit. Tavares wins the puck. Nylander finishes with it. Cowan is being asked to go get the next one, hard on pucks, feet moving, the thing he said he worked on all summer and the thing he said will not change just because the linemates did. Four games is not a verdict. It is enough for the coach to give him the shifts and see where he takes them.

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