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The repeat of the 2025 final prominently features the Maple Leafs’ top two prospects — dynamic right winger Easton Cowan of the Knights and shut-down defenceman Ben Danford, who is the captain of the Generals.

Cowan might be the most dominant offensive player in junior hockey and Danford was voted both the best defensive defenceman and the best shot blocker in the Eastern Conference in the OHL’s annual coaches’ poll.

So you can expect Cowan and Danford to spend the next little while going nose-to-nose.

“We’ll probably see each other on the ice quite a bit,” Danford said. “It should be fun. He’s a great player and we got pretty close in camp. It should be a lot of fun to play against him. They have a lot of high-end players over there.”

There aren’t many defencemen in junior hockey who would describe the prospect of having to play Cowan in a seven-game series as something that would be fun. But Danford, the Maple Leafs’ first-round pick (31st overall) in 2024, has always excelled in that area of the game. It is where he has carved his niche as a player and certainly what the Leafs envision him being at the pro level.

Cowan, on the other hand, is something of a Mitch Marner clone, a player with incredible quick-strike ability, outstanding vision and head for the game who can play both ends of the ice and kill penalties.

And both Cowan and Danford have endured their share of highs and lows this season. Danford missed all of main camp with the Leafs and the first three games of the OHL season after suffering a concussion in Leafs rookie camp; Cowan was an early cut of the Leafs in camp and struggled to produce at the world junior championship for the second straight year.

“I think he’s in a bit of a reset right now,” Maple Leafs assistant GM Hayley Wickenheiser told The Hockey News earlier this season. “It’s not easy to have all eyes on you in this market, so the challenge for him right now is as much mental as it is physical.”

With the trade of Fraser Minten to the Boston Bruins in the Brandon Carlo deal, Cowan and Danford are undisputably the top two prospects in the Maple Leafs’ system.

The only thing keeping Cowan from leading the OHL in playoff scoring — he’s tied for third with eight goals and 27 points — is the fact that he hasn’t played enough games. The Knights have swept their first three series, outscoring the Owen Sound Attack, Erie Otters and Kitchener Rangers 68-28 in the process, and they’re trying to become the first team in Canadian Hockey League history to sweep four consecutive best-of-seven series. Dating back to last season, the Knights are 28-2 in the playoffs, which included a four-game sweep of the Generals in the 2024 final in which they outscored Oshawa 31-9.

But this is a much different version of the Generals. Last year, Beckett Sennecke, Anaheim’s third-overall pick in the 2024 NHL draft, had to sit out the final series with an injury. The Generals have also made some key additions, including Winnipeg Jets top prospect Colby Barlow up front and Nashville Predators prospect Andrew Gibson on defence.

“We weren’t happy or satisfied with the job we did last year,” Danford said. “And this year we want to get it done. I feel like last year we wanted to have a deep playoff run, but I don’t think it was necessarily our year. This year we went all in and got some huge pieces and all year our eyes have been set on winning it all.”

The Knights’ eyes will be firmly fixed on the same target, for good reason. Despite their dominance in the OHL in 2023-24 they couldn’t get the job completed in the most important game of the season, losing 4-3 to the host Saginaw Spirit on a goal with 22 seconds left in the Memorial Cup final. A win in this OHL final series will punch their ticket for a return trip to the tournament, which is scheduled for May 22 to June 1 in Moncton, N.B. The Moncton Wildcats and Rimouski Oceanic already have the Quebec-Maritimes Major Junior Hockey League berths.

While the Knights are favoured to win — London was the OHL’s best team in the regular season, finishing with a 55-11-2-0 record; Oshawa was seventh overall at 41-21-4-2 — the Generals aren’t there to simply pick up a participation badge. The Generals are a storied OHL franchise with a tradition of success, a tradition Danford and Co. are eager to continue.

“We’re super confident in our group,” Danford said. “I think it will come down to structure and details. I think it’s going to be a really tight series.”