Maple Leafs Beat Islanders 2-1: Cowan and Stolarz Give Hiller First Win

Maple Leafs Islanders: Toronto wins 2-1 for Hiller's first victory

The Maple Leafs beat the New York Islanders 2-1 at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday night, and the two people who made it happen were not the names on the marquee. Easton Cowan had a goal and an assist in the first period, Anthony Stolarz made 26 saves, and Jim Hiller collected his first win as Toronto's head coach. The Maple Leafs Islanders result moves Toronto to 1-1-0, 24 hours after a 3-2 opening-night loss to Montreal.

Colton Sissons scored the other Toronto goal, his first as a Maple Leaf. Emil Heineman broke up Stolarz's shutout bid with a short-handed goal with 5:51 left in regulation, and Ilya Sorokin made 24 saves for the Islanders, who were playing their first game of the season. Announced attendance was 18,801.

It was not a dominant night. Toronto was outplayed early, scored twice in the first period and then spent most of the final 40 minutes holding on. That matters less than it might in March. A team with this many new faces needed a result on the second night of a back-to-back, and it got one from the bottom of the lineup and the crease.

How the goals were scored

Both goals came from the third line, and both started with Cowan.

1-0, Sissons, 7:14 of the first. Cowan's forecheck forced a turnover below the Islanders' goal line. Nick Paul got a shot away, the puck cycled low to Cowan, and Cowan flipped it back to Paul in the high slot. Paul found Sissons at the top of the crease and Sissons redirected it in. Paul and Cowan had the assists.

2-0, Cowan, power play, 11:55 of the first. Jack Roslovic put a shot on Sorokin from distance and Cowan was the player at the net to shovel home the rebound. It was a goal scored from the place Toronto's power play has not reliably gone in recent years, the blue paint, and it came from a 21-year-old who was not on the 23-man roster the league received on Monday afternoon.

2-1, Heineman, short-handed, 14:09 of the third. The Islanders finally beat Stolarz on a Toronto power play, which turned the final six minutes into a scramble. Stolarz closed it out, including a late stop on Bo Horvat.

Easton Cowan was Toronto's best player

Cowan was the best Maple Leaf on the ice, and it was not close. He contributed at five-on-five, on the power play and on the penalty kill, and he was the first player on the puck on both goals. That is the profile Hiller has described since the first week of camp: a winger who wins retrievals, forces turnovers and gets to the net, not a perimeter passer. We wrote about it when Cowan was the puck hound of training camp, and Wednesday was the first time it showed up on an NHL scoresheet that counts.

The context makes the night stranger and better. Cowan was left off Toronto's opening-night roster submission on Monday as part of an LTIR sequencing move worth roughly $1,500 in cap room, a manoeuvre we explained in our piece on the opening night roster and the Rifai LTIR trick. He was back on the roster in time for the opener, and two games in he has looked like a fixture rather than a paperwork casualty.

The line itself deserves credit. Paul returned from an injury scare in camp, Sissons was signed in the summer for exactly this kind of game, and together with Cowan they gave Hiller a third unit that could start in the defensive zone and finish in the offensive one. If the top six is going to take time to find chemistry, a third line that drives play buys that time.

Anthony Stolarz answered the first question

Stolarz watched the opener from the bench while Sergei Bobrovsky made 21 saves in his Toronto debut. On Wednesday, Stolarz kept the Leafs in it through a shaky first seven minutes and then took over the middle of the game. He made a sprawling save on Victor Eklund, a glove stop on Brayden Schenn and a half-scorpion stop on Anthony Duclair, then held off Horvat late.

Twenty-six saves on 27 shots is a .963 save percentage, and it came on a night when the skaters in front of him were not crisp. It is one game. It is also the right first answer for a goaltender who, as we argued in Stolarz has the most to prove of any Maple Leaf, is playing for his share of the net against a 38-year-old two-time Vezina winner with a $7 million cap hit.

There is a sweet irony in the tandem. Stolarz and Bobrovsky won the Stanley Cup together with Florida in 2024. Now they are splitting a crease that the front office has openly said will be shared. Through two games, the split is one start each, and both men gave Toronto a chance to win. That is all the goaltending debate needs to be for now. Our breakdown of Bobrovsky or Stolarz as the starter still applies: the job will be won over 84 games, not two.

Darren Raddysh bounced back

The other quiet storyline was Darren Raddysh. On Tuesday he was on the ice for all three Montreal goals and was charged with a game-high five giveaways, including a failed breakout on the Canadiens' first goal. On Wednesday he played 20:36, second on the team behind Chris Tanev's 20:39, and led Toronto with four shots on goal. He moved the puck more cleanly and was involved in scoring chances instead of giving them up.

One bounce-back game does not settle the questions around an eight-year, $68-million contract, but it does take some heat off the most scrutinized defenceman on the roster. Hiller said after the opener that the team would be patient with him, acknowledging that a hometown player on a new deal carries extra pressure. Wednesday was the first return on that patience.

What did not work for the Maple Leafs

Toronto scored twice in roughly 12 minutes and then did not score again. Sorokin was good, but the Leafs' top six, with Kirill Marchenko and Jack Roslovic flanking Auston Matthews and Gavin McKenna and William Nylander alongside John Tavares, did not generate the sustained pressure it did in stretches of the opener. Two games is not a sample, but five-on-five scoring from the top two lines will be the first thing to watch on the homestand.

The power play scored, but it also conceded. Heineman's short-handed goal was the only thing between Stolarz and a shutout, and it came during a Toronto advantage. A unit that leans on skill needs to defend its own entries better, a theme that came up repeatedly when we looked at the power play's retrieval problem in camp.

And Toronto was outshot 27-26. Winning a game while being outshot is fine. Making it a habit is how a team finishes eighth in the Atlantic with 78 points, which is where last season ended.

The lineup Hiller used

Hiller made one forward change from the opener, putting Bo Groulx into the lineup on the fourth line. The full deployment, per the lineup reported before puck drop:

• Kirill Marchenko – Auston Matthews – Jack Roslovic
• Gavin McKenna – John Tavares – William Nylander
• Easton Cowan – Nick Paul – Colton Sissons
• Brandon Duhaime – Teddy Blueger – Bo Groulx
• Jake McCabe – Chris Tanev
• Morgan Rielly – Darren Raddysh
• Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Troy Stecher
• Anthony Stolarz (Sergei Bobrovsky backup)

McCabe's presence was itself good news. He left the opener after 43 seconds of ice time when a skate appeared to clip him near the left ankle, and he was back in the lineup the next night.

What's next: Senators, then a five-game test

The Maple Leafs have two days without a game before hosting the Ottawa Senators on Saturday at 7 p.m. It is Ottawa's season opener and the Senators' first game since trading Brady Tkachuk to Florida. Toronto then hosts Nashville on Tuesday, Oct. 6, before a three-game western swing through Vegas (Oct. 8), Colorado (Oct. 10) and Utah (Oct. 13).

The questions for Saturday are straightforward. Does Hiller go back to Bobrovsky after two days off, or ride Stolarz? Does the Cowan-Paul-Sissons line keep its shape? And can the top six produce a five-on-five goal against a team that will be playing with opening-night adrenaline? You can track where Toronto sits after each game on our live standings page and every roster player's numbers on the players page.

Two games in, the Maple Leafs have a loss they could have won and a win they could have lost. The difference was a 21-year-old winger and a goaltender with something to prove. That is not a bad way for Hiller's tenure to begin.