Training Camp is going to decide the roster – at least to start the season for the Leafs – but contract rules and future planning also play a role. With Easton Cowan, it's more complex than just how good he looks in preseason action.
Cowan is 19, and he turns 20 next May. In order to play in the AHL, a player drafted out of the CHL has to turn 20 in the calendar year in which the AHL season starts. So for him that means 2025-2026.
Junior teams hold rights to players, even those who are drafted by NHL teams and signed to ELCs, so if the Leafs don't put him on the NHL roster on October 7, they must loan him to the London Knights. Please park your clever schemes about sending him to Switzerland.
Most people have heard the phrase "burn a season" and this leads to the assumption that the main concern of the Leafs will be keeping his first NHL season to under 10 games like they did with Fraser Minten.
Burning a season means the ELC doesn't slide for that year. To understand what that means, a look at Minten's contract makes it clear:
Fraser Minten
Data from Puckpedia
| Season | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | 2025-26 | 2026-27 | 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cap Hit | $875,000 | $845,833 | $816,666 | $816,666 | $816,666 | RFAage 22 |
| AAV | $875,000 | $845,833 | $816,666 | $816,666 | $816,666 | NA |
| Base | - | - | $787,500 | $787,500 | $787,500 | NA |
| Performance Bonuses | - | - | - | - | - | NA |
| Signing Bonuses | $87,500 | $87,500 | $87,500 | - | - | NA |
| Total Salary | $87,500 | $87,500 | $875,000 | $787,500 | $787,500 | NA |
| Minors Salary | - | - | $82,500 | $82,500 | $82,500 | NA |
| Clauses | - | - | - | - | - | NA |
| Year Type | RFA | RFA | RFA | RFA | RFA | NA |
Signed in 2022 for the 2022-2023 season, Minten did not play in the NHL that year. His contract "slid" meaning he received only his signing bonus. The next year, last season, he played less than 10 games and returned to junior. He was still young enough for the deal to slide again, so the same thing happened. This process turns a three-year ELC into a five-year deal, and extends the period of low ELC AAV into his first NHL seasons. For Minten, his contract cannot slide again, so AHL or NHL doesn't matter, it will end in 2027.
For Cowan, because he signed his ELC at age 18 in 2023, it already slid once, and will again if he plays less than 10 games for the Leafs this year. If they do "burn the year" by playing him more than that, his deal will also end in 2027.
The other benefit of a slide is that the AAV goes down as the signing bonuses are paid, so the cap hit when he is in the NHL is lower, you can see that above with Minten's deal. Cowan's has dropped from $935,833 to $904,667, and if it slides again, it will be $873,500.
However, while letting ELCs slide is a good practice for teams from a cap management perspective, it can be overtaken by a more important need to develop the player, even if they aren't quite ready for a full time roster spot. In that case the 40 games rule is more meaningful.
Forty games makes an accrued season, and what that means is that if a player is on the NHL roster for 40 games (games injured count if it's a hockey-related injury) they accrue a season towards UFA status. Without playing any hockey games in the NHL, Cowan won't be a UFA until 2032 when he is 27. If he begins accruing seasons this year he will get to seven seasons and UFA status one year sooner. For teams worried about long-term costs of high-end players this threshold means a lot more than one less slide year.
If Cowan looks like he could play in the NHL, but maybe not with the level of certainty that you'd want for a player who cannot be loaned to the AHL, the Leafs can choose a hybrid season for him. He can start in the NHL, play into November, and then be sent to the WJC camp for Team Canada, play in the WJC, which carries him into January, and then they have the option of sending him back to the London Knights before he has hit game 40. Depending on how the Knights' playoff situation develops, he can be back on the Leafs for their playoffs in the spring.
This plan requires a little roster or cap flexibility. There has to be someone who can be sent to the AHL for a time or enough cap room to carry 23 players, one of whom is Cowan.
No one has to decide this now. All the Leafs have to do is create the flexibility to have this option open, which given their cap situation might actually be tricky. But rather than just sending Cowan to the Knights on the last day of camp again, this might be a better option for everyone than playing him for a token handful of games first.
We'll find out when we see Cowan in the context of NHL hockey very soon, but the will he or won't he (make the NHL) guessing game is a little more complicated than a yes/no answer implies.
