Easton Cowan owns two of the Toronto Maple Leafs' three game winners this season. The 21-year-old is doing a lot more than finishing.
Saturday night's 6-3 win in Colorado pushed the Leafs to 3-2-1. And the loudest praise in Leafs circles that night wasn't aimed at the big contracts.
Nick DeSouza put it bluntly: "The points are nice but Easton Cowan's impacting the game in so many ways to start the season."
He described a forward who's "usually in the right spots defensively, constantly hounding to win pucks back." Then came the line that should land on Jim Hiller's desk.
"He's one of the better Leafs without the puck."
The scoresheet agrees more than you'd expect. Cowan has 3 goals and 5 points so far.
One of those goals came on the power play. Not bad for a guy who apparently doesn't even need the puck to matter.
Toronto's $900,000 forward is outplaying the payroll
Here's where it gets awkward upstairs. Cowan carries a $900,000 cap hit.
Darren Raddysh costs $8.5 million and has gone minus-4. Somebody on this blue line is supposed to be driving play, and the cheap kid up front is doing more of it.
It's like the cheapest bottle on the wine list winning the blind taste test. Twice. Nobody at the table planned for it, and nobody's sending it back.
Cowan isn't outscoring the stars. William Nylander leads the team with 11 points, and Auston Matthews sits right behind him with 10.
The timing matters, though. John Tavares is day-to-day for personal reasons and is listed as out until at least Tuesday.
That leaves a hole in Hiller's forward group heading into Tuesday's road date in Utah.
The Mammoth sit first in their division at 4-2-0 with a +7 goal differential. The two clubs haven't met yet this season.
So where does the kid fit? Burying Cowan in a pure checking role right now would be a bad idea. A forward who wins pucks back and closes out games deserves minutes that let him do both.
The Leafs sit 13th overall with a +2 goal differential. Nothing about this start is comfortable enough to leave a hot hand on the bench.
The real question is whether Hiller rewards the hustle now, or waits to see if it survives a bad week. In this market, bad weeks show up fast.
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Should Jim Hiller hand Easton Cowan bigger minutes in Utah on Tuesday?
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