“We’re gonna stick together as a group, whether we get the first one or not.” —Easton Cowan, Tuesday morning
BOSTON — Nearly everyone gave Easton Cowan a free pass for not attacking Radko Gudas when the Anaheim Ducks captain ended Auston Matthews' season with a greasy knee.
Hey, he’s just a baby-faced rookie. The youngest Toronto Maple Leaf is just 20 years old and only learning the ropes. Three bigger veterans were on the same sheet. That’s not his job.
Nearly everyone. But not Cowan himself.
“I wish I did something,” the winger said, regretfully and quietly, a few days after the flashpoint incident. “And that’s on me. I got to step in there, stick up for my teammates. So, I’ll learn from that.”
This Cowan kid, he’s a quick study.
Not only was Cowan the first Leaf to drop the gloves following the infamous Non-Response Game, picking a fight with Anaheim’s stud defenceman, Jackson LaCombe. But on Tuesday, in his first tour through the haunted TD Garden, the Cowboy rode wild.
The monstrous Nikita Zadorov — deliverer of injurious hits to both Matthews and Scott Laughton already this season — crushed John Tavares into the end-boards illegally, and Cowan bolted from across the zone, flippers off, attacking a fellow and fierce London Knights alum who has seven inches, 65 pounds and 737 games on him.
“I think you just kind of black out. And, you know, go for it,” Cowan said, following an impassioned 4-2 comeback victory over the Boston Bruins. “He actually lived in my billet house in London. So, hopefully my billet parents aren’t too mad.”
“I was on the ice,” Matthew Knies said. “I look up, and he’s the first one in there. I saw his gloves flying. And that gets our whole team pumped. You know, watching a guy like that step up and try to fight a guy who’s played a long time in this league and deserves a lot of respect. So, I give a lot to Easton for doing that. That's pretty cool.”
With Zadorov stuffed in the box for a five-minute boarding major, Max Domi scored a go-ahead power-play goal, and the slumping Maple Leafs busted out with by far their best performance in at least two months.
A night that did nothing for lottery odds accomplished plenty for the morale.
Dakota Joshua challenged Zadorov to a proper square-up fight in the aggressor’s first shift coming out of the box, and Toronto handled business on the shot clock (35-20), on special teams, and inside the intangibles.
An appreciative Tavares shared some words with Cowan as soon as he served his roughing penalty. The rookie was bombarded with knuckles and back-pats from teammates, then awarded the Leafs’ player-of-the-game belt on a night he had zero points, zero shots, and one heckuva character moment.
“I bet he’s feeling pretty tall right now,” Tavares smiled. “He plays with a lot of emotion. You can feel his excitement on a daily basis, just getting up and getting to play and compete. And I remember being in those shoes. So, it’s invigorating and it’s exciting. You know, I think the world of him.
“Speaks volumes to his passion for the group.”
Toronto’s passion, so lacking in the team’s final game last season, has been pushed under the microscope in this troubled one.
Concerns that young Cowan could slip into the malaise, however, should be allayed. As another ex-Knight, Nazem Kadri, might say: You don’t get rid of the dawgs.
“Playing in London and being around the Hunter brothers and learning about how to do things right is a big part of it,” Berube said. “He’s just got a lot of character.
“That’s instilled in him. He has that. So, it’s great to see.”
Cowan has ridden quite the roller coaster through these first 58 games as a pro.
He’s been demoted and scratched. He’s seen top-line and PP1 shifts. And, just Saturday, he had his postgame comments of feeling “deflated” early in a loss to Ottawa ripped by Berube as “a copout” response.
Through all the turmoil and losing, Cowan has injected the veteran Leafs with a much-needed dose of youthful energy.
“His mindset has been fantastic. You know, I’ve checked in with him at times, just to ask him how he’s doing, and he has such a great head upon his shoulders,” Brandon Carlo says. “It’s not easy to do, especially younger in a big market, but I have a lot of respect for the way that he’s carried himself.”
Carlo, 29, thinks back to his own freshman foray and how, if he made a mistake, he would stew on it.
Cowan, Carlo notes, is built a little different. He doesn’t dwell on what he should’ve done last shift; he moves his feet and focuses on what he can do to help in his current shift.
No, Cowan didn’t jump Gudas.
And no, he didn’t hesitate to charge after Zadorov.
“I can appreciate just the mindset of letting it go and moving on to the next step,” Carlo considers. “That’s something you have to learn throughout your career, for sure. But if you can get a better grasp on it sooner rather than later, it’s a big thing.”
The Maple Leafs have a good one in Cowan.
For culture’s sake, they better grasp on.
Fox’s Fast Five
• Morgan Rielly invited ex-Leaf Jake Gardiner back to TD Garden for the club’s annual mentors’ trip.
Gardiner was all smiles, wearing a No. 44 road sweater with his own nameplate.
“Had a good chat with Jake this morning, which was nice,” Berube said. “He told me that Tyler Bozak says hi. Bosie and I go back in St Louis days. So, it was a good talk.”
• James Hagens, the seventh-overall pick in 2025, participated in his first pro practice with AHL Providence on Tuesday.
“He’s gonna love it,” Boston coach Marco Sturm says. “Gonna be great for him to be a pro and have that experience. And then, who knows?”
The 19-year-old prospect wrapped a productive sophomore season with Boston College (47 points in 34 games) and elected to sign an amateur tryout with Providence.
“I like that part about him,” Sturm says. “He just wants to play hockey. And that, for me, shows that it’s going to be a bright future for us long term. That’s just the first little step.”
Is the next step joining the big Bruins in the post-season?
• With a two-goal showing, Knies hit the 20-goal mark for a second straight season and set a new career high in points (59).
His shorthanded solo rush, in which he bullied Mason Lohrei off a puck and undressed Jeremy Swayman, was a thing of beauty. Punctuated with an emphatic celebration at the glass.
“Huge goal,” Berube praised. “He was really good all night, though, for us.”
• Gudas, now a free man, finally spoke on the Matthews hit. The Ducks captain said he regrets the point of contact and that he reached out to Matthews via text. Matthews responded two days later.
“I’ve got to learn. I’ve got to be better as a hockey player. I never want to go out there and hurt anybody. It’s very unfortunate,” Gudas told reporters in Vancouver. “We spoke. I never want to see anybody get hurt, so I feel terrible about that.”
• Fraser Minten and Carlo will be forever linked in Atlantic Division lore, and they are both spoken of in highest regard by the dressing rooms they were traded out of.
Carlo and Minten have never met.
Minten, who sits beside Alex Steeves in the Bruins’ room, is striving for his first NHL playoff action.
“It’s nice to be in really meaningful games every night right now and on a super-fun team. Been a really fun year, so hopefully we can keep it going into the post-season,” the Vancouver native says.
Coach Sturm sees a bright future for his current top-line centre.
“Look at him. He looks like a 15-year-old,” Sturm grins. “That means, for me, there’s a lot to fill even in his body and everything. I’ve been working with young kids in the past, and I just love being part of this.”
How much room does Minten have to grow?
“Probably not too much vertically. Maybe a little more horizontally,” replies Minten, speaking for sportswriters everywhere.
