Fraser Minten and Easton Cowan will be afforded legitimate shots to make the Toronto Maple Leafs’ roster in the coming weeks and they looked a few tiers ahead of their peers on Saturday.
Minten and Cowan led the Maple Leafs’ prospects team to a 4-3 victory over the Montreal Canadiens in the first game of the 2024 Prospects Showdown. Minten notched the overtime winner to cap off a terrific performance, where he recorded a goal and an assist in regulation. Cowan also recorded a goal and an assist in the winning effort.
Minten and Cowan were particularly lethal on the power play, working well in combination with defenceman Topi Niemela to create space and generate clear shooting lanes. Cowan and Niemela worked the puck around, before finding Minten on the power play, who wired a shot from a bad angle into the cage.
The real play of the game may have occurred when Minten fed Cowan with a beautiful no-look pass and Toronto’s top prospect wired it home on an explosive one-timer.
Minten and Cowan were paired with Nikita Grebenkin and the trio were a constant threat on the ice. Grebenkin will likely get an invite to training camp and he appears to be ascending through Toronto’s system.
It wasn’t a perfect performance from Cowan, despite his offensive dominance. He tried to do too much with the puck, particularly through the neutral zone where he often would hold onto the puck instead of helping his team get a line change. He created a few turnovers while attempting to be overly ambitious, including a potentially costly giveaway in overtime.
In the grand scheme of things, this is still encouraging as Cowan is playing with tremendous confidence and doesn’t appear to be remotely phased by the calibre of competition, but he’ll need to be efficient and disciplined with the puck if he’s going to stick on the NHL roster.
The second game of the Prospects Showdown takes place Sunday afternoon.
