OverDrive - Cowan on the Maple Leafs' camp experience, his accolades with the Knights and gearing up for the season

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

London Knights Forward and Maple Leafs Prospect Easton Cowan joined OverDrive to discuss his experience at the Maple Leafs Development Camp, the importance of offseason training, winning with the Knights and the transitional phase to the league, the expectations for camp and more.

Unmistakably Canadian. It's the music that raised you. The artists raising the bar. Hi, this is Bryan Adams. Hey, my name's Brett Emmons. I'm from the Glorious Sons. Hi, I'm Nellie Furtado. Made in Canada.

The station that champions Canadian music. Loud, proud, and all yours. No passports required. Just press play. Tap into Made in Canada now on iHeartRadio.ca or the free iHeartRadio app. Easton Cowan is with us now. Easton, welcome. How are you today? I'm good, thanks. Thanks for having me on.

Our pleasure to have you and it'll be great to explore the conversation. We'll get to the horse in mere seconds, but before we get there, I mean, you're a multiple attendee at a development camp, so as a development camp veteran, what do you sort of take out of all this? Yeah, I mean, any days in Toronto there around the facilities will help you get better as a person and a player, so being able to go there again

and just being able to work out there with their development staff was huge for me and everyone there. Okay let's get to the horse okay. That was the big story at a development camp at least for some of us and it's kind of funny Easton we had Marty Buran on our great analyst former NHL goaltender and he loved the idea because he's a horse guy and he was he was telling us great horse stories and and many of the other kind of leadership development opportunities he had as a player that he really enjoyed There were a little bit outside the box And then we had former coach Bruce Boudreaux on last week and he called it the dumbest idea

He'd ever heard of bringing you guys out to see a horse trainer training a horse. Where did you lie on on the experience? I Mean, I like that. You know, I live on the farm on the experience? I mean I like that you know I live on the farm we don't have any animals here but being able to see how fast you know the horses caught along and how they train them was pretty cool and you can kind of take that and bring it over to the hockey side of things I guess. And in terms of the other experience at developmental camp we know they brought in a bunch of different speakers and

and other sort of people that were trying to relay messages to you. What stood out among that roster? I mean obviously a lot of You know, uh old nhl players and talent talking to us. Uh, so it was pretty cool But definitely uh marked your dano story how he was undrafted and went over to Russia for a year and then signed a deal with Calgary, ended up being the captain there and winning in Norris. But yeah, it was so cool to hear his story and no matter if you're drafted or not, it

just kind of showed that he just stuck with it and good things came and he had a great career. So let's wrap up your junior career. And first of all, congratulations on had a great career. So let's wrap up your junior career and first of all congratulations on a great junior career and I want to circle around this stat first player since 71-72 and that's Giela Fleur by the way to lead the Memorial Cup in scoring two years in a row that's you congratulations on that and you got the job done with the Memorial Cup win this year so I think a year ago last fall everybody's

talking about will he be on the Leafs? What's the point of sending him back to junior? What did you get out of that year with the London Knights? I mean I went to training camp you know I tried to make the team wasn't ready yet and came back to London and obviously under the hunters organization you're gonna learn no matter you know no matter how old you are during junior. So came back with a positive attitude, learned a lot, got better, and now I'm sitting here today and I'm definitely a better player this time,

this year than I was last year for sure. Easton, obviously you've made no secret of the fact that you really admired and idolized even Mitch Marner as you were developing as a player, as you continue to develop as a player, what was your reaction when you heard that Mitch Marner wouldn't be a fellow colleague with the Toronto Maple Leafs going forward?

Yeah, obviously, you know, he helped me out a lot ever since I was drafted to the Leafs. Him playing in London, I felt like we had that connection. So, obviously it sucked, but you know, I'm happy for him and his family. You know, I hope he does very well over there and yeah. So as you get set for training camp in the fall, obviously there's a roster spot there for you.

What, how do you see yourself fitting in and what do you want to work on? I mean, I came back to junior this year to work on managing the puck and I felt like I did a great job of that. So I'm just going to bring that to camp. Obviously camp's still a couple months away. So I'm just going to take it day by day now, keep getting better, keep getting bigger, you know, faster and stronger.

And I feel like I'll be on the perfect path, but not too worried about camp right now, but when I get there, obviously there's a job for grabs and I'm willing to work for it. Easton, I was wondering about your workload. The Maple Leafs have talked about how they didn't want you to go on the ice at developmental camp because you played such a heavy schedule this season. The last thing you needed was more ice time at this time of year, but between now and camp I mean, do you get any downtime like how do you approach that? I Mean I took a lot of time off

Took a month off of skating. It was my first day back on ice today and the working there out for this will be my third Week now, so just getting back into things It's been good, you know, obviously time off, but now you're getting to Almost almost the middle of July. So now you got to start kicking things into gear and just excited to keep training And keep pushing myself each and every day I mean you're at that point where you look back to junior and it's gonna seem like it was a year ago You set that point record 56 game point streaks are passing Doug... don't go more spolich al record what was that like now i think i was super cool i mean

i've played on so many good teams here in london so wouldn't be able to do that without my teammates and everyone you play with on the team you know just saw that super well and we jelled very well so uh... yeah i'm too super cool that my have my name in the same sentence as Gilmore. You talked about getting bigger, Easton. I mean, what's the feeling about where you're at physically and where you need to get to

to be at your best at the NHL level? I told my trainer today actually that I've never felt this good in my life. I feel super healthy and you know I feel strong and fast and you know as big as I have been so far in my life. So I just got to keep pushing myself, get to the weight I want to be at and still be able to you know use my speed to my advantage. So I just got to keep going.

The fall comes fast Easton thanks thanks very much for your time. Really appreciate it, all the best. Thank you guys. Easton Cowan, Maple Leaf Prospect. Seasoned gamer or just video game curious? This Week in Gaming is the podcast for you. We break down the latest in the world of video games from basics to beyond.

The hottest gaming news, insight and industry leaders and more weekly. Join me, Naomi Kyle, and stay ahead of the game with all the latest updates, even if you're a total newbie. Stream This Week in Gaming on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.