Darren Dreger confirmed Elliotte Friedman's earlier suspicions that the Maple Leafs do not want to trade Easton Cowan after his immense growth over the last year.
One thing that you have to be impressed about early on this season for the Toronto Maple Leafs is the play of Easton Cowan. He's been lights out offensively, a great asset on defense and the penalty kill, and he's a certified passion-haver - being the spark plug that keeps the engine running.
He's found himself on the top line alongside Auston Matthews and Jack Roslovic and has thrived to the tune of 12 points in 13 games, as he has nearly hit the halfway mark to his point total from last season, which was 29 points in 66 games.
it's safe to say he's on pace to crush those numbers, and is projected to have 34 goals and 77 points this season if he keeps this current pace up. If so, that's an insane leap from rookie to sophomore year, and means Toronto may have found their next star forward.
Cowan is going nowhere anytime soon - no matter what
And that makes him basically untouchable now. Elliotte Friedman reported earlier this season that the team was hesitant to trade Cowan as he was starting to get more comfortable as opposed to the summer where he was a potential trade candidate for a blockbuster.
But Darren Dreger has just confirmed that the Maple Leafs have no intentions on trading Cowan, and it seems all but assured that he is sticking around for the long-haul:
I don't think they have any interest in Toronto in trading him.
Why would they? With Auston Matthews' comments recently about Cowan and his growth this season, even the captain is trying to tell everyone that Cowan's off-limits. It's actually mind-blowing how good he's been given how little he was offered last year.
Cowan was always this talented, he just never had the chances
You may look at 66 games played and ask 'What do you mean? He played a lot!'
Well, he averaged 14:43 TOI under Craig Berube, but that also came with a team that was losing a lot of games and basically had no choice but to give Cowan a shot - despite not really wanting to at times.
13 games under Hiller he's averaging 15:09 and his role has shifted considerably. Berube started him 61.9% of the time in the offensive zone with only a 38.1% in his own end.
This year, he's 50% even on both sides - he's being rewarded with tough minutes. All of his numbers have gotten better, he's oozing confidence, the team is successful whenever he's on the ice it feels like, and there have been several games where he has been the catalyst to get things going whether it's scoring goals or being an elite playmaker.
It's never the quantity of minutes, because those are never truly telling of how things are going. He could get 20 minutes in a blowout scenario like in other sports but they're basically fodder. He's being tasked with defending tough matchups, kill penalties, and being pushed out there in the last minutes of the game to defend the lead.
That's something that you can't replace so easily, and combined with his offensive prowess, you start to see that Easton Cowan isn't just untouchable.
He just very well may become unstoppable too.
Should the Maple Leafs make Easton Cowan untouchable in trade talks?
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