Maple Leafs Prospect Report: OHL Check-In

The 2025 World Juniors have now been completed as of Sunday, with Team USA coming back and beating Finland in overtime to win the gold medal. In general, I thought it was a pretty great tournament for entertainment of the games played on the ice. Upsets, comebacks, and more close games than you usually get when the traditionally top contending countries face those fighting for regulation.

Easton Cowan

It's tough to say that Cowan this year has been 'disappointing', but he's definitely not really made any major strides in his game. The good thing is he's extended his regular season point streak from last season to 64 games as of writing this. But aside from that, his production overall is down (1.38 points per game this year vs 1.78 points per game last year), and his tracking data – while still very good – is not as good as last year either.

From the eye test, I can't say I've noticed major improvements either. His shot does look better, and his goal rate is up this year compared to last. I'm not going to say Toronto made a bad decision in sending him back to junior because he didn't look that good during training camp either. He's looked slower, or not as explosive. He's still making the same kind of mistakes in terms of trying to do too much with the puck.

The other thing I keep in mind, without knowing just how much this matters, is that he has been hurt at multiple times this year. Once was after taking a big hit when he had a head to head collision with the guy checking him. More recently after returning from the World Juniors he missed a weekend.

I won't bother commenting on his World Juniors because while I don't think he looked spectacular, Team Canada as a whole was a poorly constructed and coached mess and Cowan wasn't alone in looking worse compared to his play the rest of the season. He's still a very good prospect, my opinion of him has not changed a whole lot but maybe everyone who was ready to annoint him as a lock for Toronto's top 6 prematurely will cool their jets.

Ben Danford

Danford is a bit of a different story than Cowan. While has similar superficial 'declines' this season compared to last, in terms of his point rate (0.52 points per game last year vs 0.40 points per game this year) and in terms of his impact data. However, he has improved in some specific ways from what I've seen that I think are important and valuable – his offensive impacts in terms of passing, creating offense in the offensive zone, and in doing the little things to help the team generating chances has all gotten better from last year, and that's what I wanted to see this year.

As for why Danford's point production has dipped a bit compared to last year, I'll chalk it up to a combination of usage and bad luck. He still doesn't get almost any time on the powerplay unless their top two options on defense are hurt. While he does get top time at even strength, he's the heavy lifter of the team – the Chris Tanev, if you will. He gets the defensive zone usage, and is relied upon to shut down the other team's top players. He is in charge of getting the team from the defensive zone into the offensive end. While his impact data may show a slight dip in that, he's still so damn good that I don't think it means much when he has only had three games tracked so far.

So overall, I'd say Danford has shown some slight improvements but has yet to have any major offensive breakout like most have been hoping for.

Sam McCue

Back in December, I wrote a full report on Sam McCue. I talked about how he was offensively leading a very weak Owen Sound team as part of a mini-breakout this season. Since then, he continued to lead Owen Sound in many categories, before he was traded to Flint at the OHL deadline. Funnily enough, Flint was not a great team either and McCue still leads them in many of the same categories (goals, shots, etc). The difference is, there is a good deal more depth on Flint than there was on Owen Sound, which has meant two things: first, he has better linemates around him; and second, he hasn't been getting the same top usage, but not by a lot. So far on Flint, he has 4 goals and 8 points in only 6 games. That brings him to 22 goals and 39 points in 41 games.

The tracking data above shows some of what I said in his full prospect report. McCue has been good at generating specific offense, which is finishing plays. He doesn't have much of an impact in transporting or passing the puck through the neutral zone, and he's just an okay passer. He does a lot of little things well, but they're not of the flashy or huge-impact variety. Still one of the more interesting players Toronto drafted in the later rounds last year, in terms of a potential bottom six energy winger.

Like Danford, McCue has shown more of a slight overall improvement than anything dramatic, even if he has a lot more goals and points. The increased production is in part explained by him getting top minutes and top powerplay time. It would be good to see him show more improvements in handling and passing the puck to make him more versatile