Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Easton Cowan is set to begin his playoff campaign with the OHL’s London Knights on Friday.

He and his team were the undisputed top team in the OHL this season with a league-best 112 points and are the odds-on favourite to go on another deep playoff run. Assuming all goes well, Cowan has a chance at making the Memorial Cup Finals for a second straight season in an attempt to right the wrongs of last season, where the Knights fell one goal short of junior hockey glory. Theoretically speaking, Cowan and the Knights should have little trouble getting past the Owen Sound Attack in the first round and beyond. Assuming his playoff run lasts as long as many are anticipating, he will be done playing hockey by June 1st at the absolute latest.

However, in a hypothetical scenario where Cowan’s Knights are eliminated earlier than anticipated, should the Leafs call up their top prospect to the NHL?

To begin, let’s answer the question of whether Cowan is even eligible to play in the NHL this season, given he was already sent down before the start of the year. The CHL-NHL Agreement stipulates that there are only two scenarios that can allow a prospect like him to make his way to the NHL after being assigned to their CHL team: either through an emergency recall in the event of injuries or once his junior season is finished.

The former option is very rarely used, with the last time the Leafs exercised this avenue being during the 2009-10 season when they called up Nazem Kadri for a one-game stint, so the more likely outcome is the latter. So long as the Leafs are still playing by the time Cowan’s campaign is finished, they are allowed to recall him to the NHL, provided they have the room to fit his contract in the books.

Whether it can be done is therefore irrelevant because the roster can be shuffled to make room if the Leafs feel that they want to have Cowan up with the NHL squad. Having cap wonderkind Assistant GM Brandon Pridham on their management will help GM Brad Treliving out in making the adjustments needed to clear room for Cowan during the regular season, though the playoffs would be much easier to manage.

It’s really about whether the Leafs should go down this avenue in the first place, and the answer to that is a lot more complex.

On one hand, getting Cowan in the lineup would provide a huge boost to the bottom-six that continues to look for its identity. Head coach Craig Berube has yet to fully settle on a lineup combination with the third and fourth line that he is comfortable rolling with going into the playoffs, and perhaps having their top prospect available to them could give him another option to consider. The Leafs’ depth scoring remains a question mark going into the playoffs, and they will need all the offence they can get from their supporting cast outside their Core Four. Adding in a player who was less than a year removed from being named the OHL’s MVP, was on a 65-game point streak, and is entering the OHL playoffs on a heater would be a significant addition to the lineup. Given he will not have a lot of pressure as his other teammates given he would likely be in the bottom-six to start, there is reason to think that it could work.

But offence alone would not be enough to secure his spot in the lineup: Cowan would have to prove he can be a reliable player at both ends of the ice. During 2024 training camp, Cowan was given ample opportunity to crack the NHL roster, and it was there for the taking if he could make the most of it. He did a lot of small things well, and he showed glimpses of his high-end offensive skill set throughout the camp, but his biggest obstance was the need to add strength, especially when holding onto the puck in the offensive zone against NHL-calibre defencemen.

“He’s produced in junior and has been very successful,” Berube said back in September on Cowan. “But the one thing, watching the rookie games, this guy works. He’s a competitor. He’s a very competitive player. But in the end, he’s got to be detailed. A lot of players coming out of junior hockey still have the junior habits. And he needs to show us that he doesn’t have all the junior habits anymore.”

That last portion of the quote is critical because the fact Cowan went down to the OHL signals that Berube felt that the prospect still needed to work out of ‘junior habits’. The 19-year-old took the demotion in stride and wouldn’t let it deter him on his pursuit of getting ready for the NHL, telling Leafs Morning Take on December 23 that he feels he could thrive in a Berube system. But it remains to be seen if Cowan has done enough to rid the habits out of his game to secure a look in the NHL this season.

Realistically speaking, Cowan will more likely be an option for the Leafs next season, given that this would be the last year that the ELC slide rules would apply for his contract. Unless they feel that Cowan’s play forces their hand, they would likely want to ensure that they can keep that option available for next season so that his ELC would run until the 2027-28 campaign. Now that’s not to say he won’t be called up once his OHL season is complete, but it would be as a Black Ace, similar to what happened with Cade Webber last spring.

The Leafs can certainly call up Cowan if they want to, provided his season his done while the Leafs are still playing, with the only thing that they would need to overcome being their cap space if this were to occur before the Stanley Cup playoffs kick off. Whether they should actually do it depends on if management feels that their top prospect is ready, and it remains unclear at this time if he has proven that he is.

Stranger things have happened, and nothing is impossible, but don’t hold your breath that Cowan will get into NHL games with the Leafs this season.