Toronto Maple Leafs Top Prospects Gets Biggest Opportunity of His Life

The Toronto Maple Leafs are playing the Montreal Canadiens tonight, and it's the third game of the pre-season.

Now, I don't usually care too much about pre-season games, let alone write up a game-preview for them but tonight's Toronto Maple Leafs tilt is extremely interesting, possibly more so than most games that actually count in the standings.

That is because it's a make-or-break game for the Leafs top prospect, Easton Cowan.

And to up the anti, he'll be playing with Max Domi and Mitch Marner.

Toronto Maple Leafs Top Prospects Gets Biggest Opportunity of His Life

Changing a coach can be fun, but it can also be frustrating. If, unlike Craig Berube, you've actually seen Max Domi play centre in the NHL for most of a season, you probably don't understand why this is something a team would try.

You'd figure there'd be someone on the staff who could tell Berube that Domi is a replacement level player as a centre, but I guess he needs to learn it for himself.

I would go so far as to say that the Leafs entire season hinges on pairing Max Domi with Auston Matthews and stretching the lineup by having Matthews, Marner and Nylander on different lines, but I'm here today to talk about Easton Cowan.

Consensus seems to be that he will be going back to junior, which is stupid. The Leafs are a historically dumb organization that is currently among the most poorly managed in the NHL, and they are so known for their bad decisions that every good one they make sends shockwaves through the entire industry, but sending Cowan back to repeat the 5th grade when he's ready for University would take the cake.

Everyone has their take, but what Cowan did last year proves he's ready for the NHL. A smart team would get him into the league and put him into a position to succeed.

The Toronto Maple Leafs played him for 8 5v5 minutes in their last game, and in the first game of the pre-season he spent about half his time with Ryan Reaves, who is so bad Wayne Gretzky couldn't put up good numbers with. (naturalstattrick.com).

To me, that says that they already made up their mind and so they aren't working to put him in the best situations so that they only have to put him on the roster if he blows them away. And believe me, the best prospect in the world wouldn't make a good impression stuck mostly on the 4th line and then barely used. (To be fair, he did get the post power-play time on the team in game two, but that doesn't make his 5v5 usage any better. )

That said, Cowan gets to play with Marner and Domi tonight, and that should be a fun line and perhaps Cowan can score five or so points and put himself in to the opening night lineup, which is where he should be regardless of anything that happens in training camp.

The Leafs need depth scoring, they need more offense, and they need it from players who are cheap and have upside. Cowan gives them all three, and the fact he might not get on the roster so the Leafs can play Max Pacioretty is just so incredibly dumb that it feels like standard operating procedure for being a Leafs fan.