The Toronto Maple Leafs have had some struggles early on this season. Goaltender Anthony Stolarz publicly called out his teammates at one point, in fact. Still, there have been some bright spots. One such bright spot is rookie Easton Cowan, who finally scored his first career NHL goal.

The former first-round pick found the back of the net on Saturday night. He scored 33 seconds into the third period on a fantastic feed from John Tavares. This goal made it 4-1 at the time, and the Maple Leafs went on to defeat the Philadelphia Flyers by a final score of 5-2.

It has taken Cowan a bit of time to find the back of the net. He has played well away from the puck, but he hadn't scored until this goal. The Maple Leafs rookie spoke about the journey to this goal before taking on the Pittsburgh Penguins on Prime Monday Night Hockey.

“It’s a mental grind,” Cowan said, via Sportsnet's Luke Fox. “You want to score. And the first (eight) games I played in, didn’t score. So, just stuck with it in practice. Kept getting better, and I'm gonna keep doing that. It’s just felt like it was just gonna be a matter of time, you know? I stuck with it.”

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The Maple Leafs (6-5-1) are still trying to find their footing despite the win. Toronto has lost four of its last seven games. And they have yet to win more than two games in a row. Overall, the Leafs have looked rather lifeless to begin this season. This is something that must change sooner rather than later.

As mentioned, Toronto returns to the ice Monday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins. A win over Sidney Crosby and the Metropolitan Division-leading Pens (8-3-2) could give them a big boost in confidence.

Puck drops at 7:30 p.m. ET from Scotiabank Arena.

Stream Prime Monday Night Hockey exclusively on Prime Video and experience thrilling goals and dramatic plays from the NHL. Monday nights are hockey nights — don’t miss a moment of the action. Prime Monday Night Hockey streams all national regular-season Monday night NHL games on Prime Video in Canada. The series is available free to Prime members in Canada.