The Toronto Maple Leafs season is over, but that doesn't mean hockey is stopping within the organization, and now, we're going to see a lot of familiar faces continue to hit the ice.
Announced by the team on Friday morning, the Maple Leafs have sent down a total of six players down to the Marlies as the AHL team get ready for the upcoming playoffs. Goaltender Artue Akhtyamov, defenseman William Villeneuve, and forwards Luke Haymes, Ryan Tverberg, Jacob Quillan, and most notably, Easton Cowan, are all going to take the ice at the Coca-Cola Coliseum for the remainder of the season and into the postseason.
G Artur Akhtyamov, D William Villeneuve, F Easton Cowan, F Luke Haymes, F Ryan Tverberg and F Jacob Quillan have been assigned to the Toronto Marlies (AHL).
— Leafs PR (@LeafsPR) April 17, 2026
Maple Leafs give Marlies a big upgrade before the playoffs
The Marlies have two games remaining in the regular season -- a back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday against the Laval Rocket at home -- but have already clinched the playoffs in the North Division. They currently sit fourth in division standings with 78 points but are just one point back from the Cleveland Monsters for third. Either way, they are going to be the underdog in the first round as they're set to face either the Syracuse Crunch (the Lightning's affiliate) or the Rocket (the Canadiens' affiliate).
So, they can certainly use all the reinforcements they can get.
While the other players have spent most of their seasons down in the AHL and they had massive contributions already to this team, Cowan joining this team should provide a massive boost. The 20-year-old winger played a total of 66 games for the Maple Leafs in his rookie season and scored 11 goals and 29 points. He certainly had a solid showing for his first campaign and now will take that and hopefully beat up on some prospects from other teams the rest of the way.
This team isn't guaranteed to make much noise in the AHL playoffs, but with an NHL-level forward like Cowan, they can potentially go much farther than originally projected.
The Marlies won their only Calder Cup back in 2018, with the likes of Andreas Johnsson, Carl Grundstrom, and Trevor Moore being the leading players on that team. Since then, they have reached the conference final once (the year after their Calder Cup), and the second round of the playoffs just twice in total. With no real high-end prospects in the system, or players like Matthew Knies taking different routes to the NHL, the Marlies have not been as dominant as a team compared to past years.
Still, it will be interesting to see if Cowan can take over a series, or if the NHL season took too much out of him.
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