Jared Cowen, after bitter departure from Maple Leafs, hoping for new life with Avalanche

Jared Cowen is no fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“I wish teams would have more of an interest in taking better care of their players instead of whatever their goal or mindset was there,” Cowen, at Colorado Avalanche training camp on a professional tryout, said Friday.

Cowen was acquired by the Maple Leafs in February of 2016, but never played a game for the club. Why?

“Basically, they got me, figured out that I was hurt, they didn’t want to deal with it and they got rid of me,” Cowen said.

Cowen, whose last NHL game was Feb. 2 of 2016, for the Ottawa Senators against Pittsburgh, lost a complicated arbitration case against the Maple Leafs, who argued they shouldn’t have been liable for a $4.5 million cap hit for buying out the last year of his contract based on his health. The decision cost Cowen about $3 million in hard currency, because anyone bought out under age 26 only receives one-third of their cap hit. Essentially, the Maple Leafs argued he was healthy, that it was a hockey decision to buy him out. Cowen argued he was hurt on the job and was owed his guaranteed contract.

“It was a joke of a process,” Cowen said. “But, it’s in the past. It was a stressful time in my life, in terms of getting traded, getting bought out, getting waived, finding out I needed surgeries.”

The present? Cowen knows he’s a bit of a longshot to make the Avs. He’s had surgery on both hips in the past two years. He played with some bad hips his last couple of seasons with the Senators, he said, which led to overcompensation and injuries to other areas of the body.

Friday was his first official on-ice activities with an NHL team since the trade from Ottawa. How did it go?

“It was fine, but I was just a little bit behind in terms of conditioning because I ran out of time to get as good as I wanted to be for camp, because I’ve been rehabbing the whole way here,” said Cowen, a 2009 first-round pick of Ottawa with 249 games of NHL experience, all with the Senators. “But, knowing me, when I think I’m behind, I’m usually ahead. It’s a new feeling for me. There were times I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep going with my (hockey) career or not, but I had just enough time to make it and hopefully I keep progressing instead of regressing. But so far, it’s not so bad.”

Avs coach Jared Bednar said the club will take a good look at Cowen before making any decisions. At 6-foot-5, 238 pounds, Cowen has big-time size and is known as a hard hitter. Whether he has the necessary quickness to play in a league that has gone warp-speed? That’s still to be determined.

“Eventually, I’ll feel really, really good. Right now, I feel good. It’s just getting to that point,” he said. “I have a lot of respect for guys now who have done PTOs. Because, it’s stressful, it’s not your team yet, it sucks. But I hope things progress the way I want here. I’m happy to be here.”