With Calle Jarnkrok and Connor Dewar already out of the lineup, and Bobby McMann healthy scratched to start the season it is somewhat clear that Toronto’s forward depth (as well as cap situation and roster size) presented a challenge to keeping Easton Cowan around the Maple Leafs. The Toronto Maple Leafs made the difficult decision to return their top prospect to the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League, making him unavailable to the Maple Leafs for recall except on an emergency basis. While the decision is certainly understandable, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on whether it was the right decision before acknowledging the decision has already been made and it doesn’t matter one way or the other any more.

To the credit of Craig Berube and Brad Treliving, they certainly did their due diligence on Easton Cowan this fall. They had the young forward in five of their six preseason games, with only Nick Robertson and Philippe Myers seeing more time on ice than Cowan. The fact that Cowan went without a goal despite leading the Maple Leafs in powerplay time can be viewed as a knock against him. Cowan picked up just a single assist and didn’t register a shot on the powerplay, the assist was his only point of the preseason.

Cowan didn’t particularly stand out in either a positive or negative way during training camp and while no red flags is something to be happy with, the fact that Easton wasn’t able to balance safe in the right ways with playing his game that makes him standout shows the room for improvement. Once you consider the amount of competition amongst the Leafs forward group and Cowan’s performance, the case for Easton making the team off of merit wasn’t there.

“I get it, the fans, everybody gets excited. We want to see the new toy. But experience teaches you a lot of things… You can really impact a guy negatively trying to rush him versus developing him properly,” was Brad Treliving’s reasoning (via Sportsnet) adding, “we’re thinking long term with him.”

The long term thinking aspect is an admirable approach and one that most people can get behind but the decision isn’t without its shortcomings. For one, there really isn’t much left for Easton Cowan to do in junior. Sure, he’ll get to play in the World Juniors this year again, but that option could have been available to him if he stayed with the Leafs as well. He’ll play on a great London Knights team, that does have NHL calibre coaching behind the bench, but the reality is that as long as Cowan is beyond the competition he won’t get a chance to work on the pro level things he needs to improve. There is plenty that can be done to build strength, but the way Cowan plays isn’t likely to change until he gets back to a pro situation next season. While the Leafs might be thinking long term with Cowan this might not be what is best for him long term. The AHL would clearly be the perfect spot for Easton Cowan, but obviously that isn’t an option.

The idea that was left on the table would have been carving out a spot on the Maple Leafs for Cowan, recognizing that he wasn’t going to hit the ground running. There were going to be healthy scratches, there might be some nights he’s playing 10 minutes a night, and he wouldn’t likely be taking a run at the Calder. It would be able keeping Cowan in a 13th or 14th forward spot and using him when they can with the intention that as the season progressed, so would Cowan, and he would potentially be an option that fit in the top nine by the end of the year, all at the low, low cost of an entry level contract.

The nice thing about that approach is that if it was going sideways the Leafs could have still cut their losses before Cowan played his 10th game and returned him to junior. Seemingly the Leafs could have done this by delaying the signing of Steven Lorentz until they made up their mind on Cowan. The upside trade-off seems worth the risk from an outsider’s perspective, but it’s likely Craig Berube sees having a developing rookie as an unnecessary challenge he doesn’t need right now.

With the amount of changes the Leafs are facing going from a Sheldon Keefe team to a Craig Berube team, and with the amount of changes even before the William Nylander at centre experiment are considered, it’s entirely possible that the on-the-fly approach to player development with Easton Cowan would have been a little much and something that became lost in the shuffle.

The good news is the Leafs still do have a Player Development department that is second to none and London is not that far away. Given that a big part of what Cowan’s focus on should be is reintroducing the strongest parts of his game to his safe play of the preseason, there is something for the comfort of the OHL too.

It will be interesting to see if over the 82 game slog if Toronto looks for an emergency recall situation where they can sneak a peek at what Cowan could do in the Leafs lineup and take advantage of that loophole, but in reality, that fits back in with the nature of Brad Treliving’s comment about wanting to see the new toy even more than it is about development.

Some disappointment over Easton Cowan not grabbing a spot on the Leafs this fall is reasonable, and through his performance and the performance of certain bottom six Leafs forwards over the next few months it will feel like a missed opportunity, but this was probably a decision based on what the organization feels helps them the best now and the best in the future.