The most important event in all of sports is coming to Exhibition Place over the next couple of weeks. No, not the big soccer thing that’s happening across the street, but the Calder Cup Final, as the Toronto Marlies secured their spot as Eastern Conference Champions on Sunday night in Wilkes-Barre.
The win came in dramatic fashion, as many have in recent weeks. Toronto rallyed back from a trailing position, almost lost grips with the game in the late stages of the third as Artur Akhtyamov continued his legacy run between the pipes, and ultimately punched their ticket through Alex Nylander slipping a puck five-hole against his former team in overtime.
For the first time in these playoffs, the Marlies didn’t need the maximum amount of games to secure victory, though they did require a couple extra periods. This is especially surprising given that the Penguins were the best regular season team they’d faced yet, putting up the league’s third-best record in 2025/26. Nevertheless, expectations haven’t been a thing this team has worried about along the way, winning three consecutive series where they would’ve been considered the underdog.
Besides wrapping up a little earlier this time, this was also an impressive series beneath the surface for Toronto. Wilkes-Barre pushed pace more than their previous opponents, but outside of Game 1 (which they still managed to win), the Marlies didn’t chase in an overwhelming fashion, largely keeping up in terms of shot volume, quality, and transition play. As games got feisty, Toronto was more than happy to shove back or even stir the pot themselves, most obviously shown as they ran away with Game 5. While this is far from most stacked the franchise has ever been on paper, the team played like a group that felt they deserved to be there all the same.
It was also the most encouraging series of the playoffs from a perspective of Toronto’s younger talent.
The most talked-about of those younger players has been forward Easton Cowan, and it’s no surprise as to why. After all, having played a full season in the NHL before these playoffs, he’s the young player Leafs fans and media are familiar with, and he’s expected to be have the highest upside of the bunch (at least, until the draft in a couple weeks).
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts throughout the postseason, this hasn’t been the dominant run that most expected out of Cowan. While he’d picked up points here and there, he struggled to make the right plays at the right time almost doing too much. In my last piece, I said this wasn’t inherently a bad thing to have unfold, as adversity would be good for his development, and a situation where he had to take his experience at the highest level and focal-point status in junior and find a way to shape them at a whole different level could be instructive.
We may not have gotten a better example of real-time growth than his last three games. Cowan returned from an upper-body injury in Game 4, and while he was unlikely to get too much grief for a so-so effort in his first game back, a late-game turnover that led to Rutger McGroarty’s game-winning drew a lot of attention, and what could’ve been a lot of ire.
What followed created a different look altogether. After the game, Cowan jumped on the chance to take ownership and set a renewed expectation for his next opportunity. “Unfortunately, I cost my team the game. Obviously don’t want to do that.” said Cowan. “I’ve got to make a better play. So I can’t do anything about it now, but I’ve got to move on and be better [on Friday], and I will be”.
Friday came, and Cowan was among those who led the charge in Toronto’s 5-1 victory, getting a touch over to Bo Groulx on the game-winning goal and scoring a silky drag-and-release to give the team some insurance early in the third period. Post game, the tone switched from “me” to “we”, giving the group credit for their work knowing that his actions on the ice spoke for themselves on the individual front. On Sunday, he picked up the equalizer that began Toronto’s comeback. It’s about as good of a response as anyone could ask for.
Cowan wasn’t the only notable young player with a big moment in Game 5. One of his former junior teammates, Landon Sim, picked up his first AHL playoff goal to get Toronto going in the second period, and it felt like he was due for that moment for a couple games. I’ll be the first to admit that I had Sim written off as a long-shot for much of a pro career going into this season, but I’m beginning to take more of a wait-and-see approach here. Sim’s energy on the ice is infectious and never-ending, seems to distract his opponents, and he’s been able to channel it into several scoring opportunities in recent weeks.
“I was just kind of licking my chops all season, from the press box,” said Sim of a year where he played just 31 games between the AHL and ECHL. “I’m just running with it, and whatever way I can help my team win, I’m going to try to do it at the best of my capabilities.”
“He’s been a breath of fresh air of us,” said Marlies Head Coach John Gruden after Game 5. “he brings a lot of jam, a lot of energy, and you know, he’s making plays and he’s doing his job. He’s doing a really good job at his role, brings a lot of jam to our group, and it can’t be more fitting for a guy like that”.
One other young player who jumped out at me, and many others during this series is Ben Danford, who joined the team mid-playoffs following his OHL season with the Oshawa Generals and Brantford Bulldogs. Expectations for the 20-year-old aren’t extremely high given his lack of productivity at the major junior level – usually a prerequisite for even defensive-first players to translate at the pro level, but the 2024 first-round pick had the definition of a strong “little things” series.
Danford has consistently made the strong defensive reads and plays he’s been known for throughout his early career, but has also shown a confidence with the puck that many haven’t expected from him, particularly as the playoffs have gone on. Danford carried or passed the puck into the offensive zone more than any other Toronto defender in the Wilkes-Barre series, which was necessary in a matchup that involved more neutral-zone play than those prior.
Gruden has rewarded him for those efforts, ramping him up from an average of about 12 minutes of ice time against Cleveland to an average of a little over 19 in the Conference Final.
“I haven’t noticed one time where he’s gotten stuck in the offensive zone,” said Gruden of Danford’s new gear after Game 4. “He does a really good job reading the situation, then identifying it, and we don’t lose him as a backchecker. So that’s good on him, for a young defenceman to be able to jump into these situations and be a threat offensively and not get caught defensively.”
I’m not quite as sure as some others are yet about penciling Danford straight into next year’s Leafs roster, but it might be in Toronto’s favour to keep developing this end of his game. Even if he doesn’t become a big point guy, a strong defensive player who can push the play in the correct direction for the more creative players to capitalize on has a lot of value in the depths of an NHL lineup at some point. I’ve thrown around the idea of “Justin Holl, but with more development track to work with” out there, which probably sounds better to me than it does to some other people. TJ Brodie may be a more exciting parallel, though he was a more productive junior scorer.
Toronto now gets to wait to find out who their opponent will be, though it won’t be for too long. The Chicago Wolves (affiliates of the Carolina Hurricanes) and Colorado Eagles (affiliates of the Colorado Avalanche) face off in a winner-take-all Game 7 tonight in Loveland, Colorado. Either victor would have home ice advantage against the Marlies, who will host Games 3, 4, and 5 (if necessary) on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday next week. Going back to the opening line, the schedule has been designed to avoid overlap with the World Cup, so traffic, while likely still worse than it would be in another year, shouldn’t be impossible for fans to navigate.
I plan on continuing to follow this playoff run along, so keep checking this space for updates.
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