EM88

Pick Power or Bryum as who you want hear long term. Ideally then you trade the other in package to get a quality top 4 D-man back who plays a different style, stay at home, responsible, physical, stuff like that. Move Cozens. Maybe that means move him to wing but that is going to require getting a quality center back. But hopefully move him off the team. Removing Cozens from the team and getting a quality veteran top 4 d-man and a veteran center to me solve 75% of this teams problems on the ice.

When you look at Pettersson and his career, it is much different than Dylan Cozens. Dylan Cozens had one single year people are holding onto hope based on. As others have said on this very forum, he always has had questionable value away from the puck and that one year was a result of a shooting percentage anomaly. He shot close to 15%. For his career, and every other year, that is not who he is. Analytics conclusions pften show a 1 year shooting percentage anomaly is one of the biggest things that can revert to the norm. Pettersson has a much larger sample size of great play. In his 6 seasons completed in his career he has never finished as a negative +/- player, even when Vancouver had a bad year as a team. Every year he has been a 30 goal scorer (or on pace for 30 goals when not playing a full 82 games). He gets nearly 50 assists per 82 games for his career, so he gets his teammates involved in the game. It is a tad bit troubling that from the day he signed his new contract last year his production has dropped, But he has a very large sample size showing he is indeed a young, 2-way, playmaking and scoring center that can get 1st line assignments. A trade for him is not without risk, that is for sure. Even with that risk I would be very happy if a deal for him was completed.

Dylan Cozens can no longer be a Center. He is just too bad it it.

There is a circle that I cannot square with Dylan Cozens. If he is so bad, why does he keep getting opportunities? I see what many people are saying. I see for myself the mistakes. The dumb plays without the puck. Him missing wide open teammates and instead blasts shots into the goalies chest. It is all there for me to see. He is the least productive Power Play producer maybe in the league. I think he has the least number of Powerplay goals over the last few years of any forward in the league with as much ice time as him on the power play. Many advanced stats show the powerplay functions better when he is not on the ice than when he is. Yet the coaches keep putting him out there. As per the other message, he is not clutch at all. He scores one game winning goal every 82 games. Yet in close games the coaches keep putting him out there at the end. Other users have posted videos of him on the penalty kill where he is single handedly responsible for goals allowed by being the only defensive player way out of position. Yet the coaches keep putting him out there. Advanced metrics that some have posted recently show that players advanced stats like Corsi for, Net goals for minus goals allowed, have players that leave his line get better, and players who join him get worse. He is awful at making line-mates better and usually makes others with him worse. Yet whenever there are line changes or opportunities to move him up to a higher line, the coaches keep giving him those chances. From what I can tell this is not only this year but these things have happened for most of his career. They have happened with him through various head coaches and assistant coaches. I do know that coaches ultimately know a lot more about hockey than I do, and they have access to a lot of information than I do. So to repeat myself from above, I cannot square the circle that Dylan Cozens, through everything we see and almost every measrable metric, is a bad hockey player. A hockey player that makes the team worse whenever he is on the ice. Yet how is it every coach just gives him chance after chance, and failure after failure he keeps continuing to get those opportunities and ice time? Is he really a much better hockey player than we all think and we are missing it?

A very interesting Dylan Cozens stat to myself I just came across. Since Dylan Cozens has been in the NHL, he has played 329 games. In his career the Sabres overall as a team have been credited with 132 game winning goals. Dylan Cozens has 4 game winning goals in 329 games. Less than 1 in every 82 games he plays. For comparison the other top forwards: Alex Tuch has 17 game winning goals, 1 in every 14 games played. Tage Thompson has 15 game winning goals, about 1 in every 20 games. Victor Olofsson had 14 game winning goals, about 1 in every 20 games. Skinner had 10 game winning goals, about 1 in every 28 games. Peterka has 8 in only just over 200 games, 1 in every 25 games. He just might be the least clutch forward in the league considering how much ice time he gets in those situations.

Cozens did that a few days games ago against Seattle. I forgot which winger it was, I think Peterka or Tuch, But Cozens was gliding through the offensive zone toward the boards but he was looking in a different direction than he was skating. The winger was trying to get back up ice into the neutral zone and Cozens skated right into him, they both spun around and took each other out of things for a few seconds as Seattle took the puck up the ice for an eventual 3 on 2.

It does seem highly unlikely that Dylan Cozens is going to turn his play around and become an asset for this team at this point. At the beginning of this season I was down on his play, but as I have every year, I held out hope for a step forward. It has not happened. He may have gotten worse. There may not be a better example of the proverbial "change of scenery" being something that benefits both the player and the team. Your bag of pucks might be apt for what they should get now. Despite his raw talent, he is a very bad hockey player that actively hurts this team when he is on the ice. I did not believe that 100% earlier in this year, but after reading some posters descriptions and looking into what they have said, I have come around to the team being better under the category of addition-by-subtraction regarding Dylan Cozens.

To me it is not the heart and hustle that are lacking with those 3 players. Tage is made of crystal and glass. He does not need more hustle as much as he needs to stay healthy. He does notseem like he can. Cozens is just bad. Hustle is not an issue with him. Its awareness and hockey IQ. No amount of on-ice effort fixes him. Tuch I also do not think needs heart and hustle. Most of the time I think he is very good at what he does. The issue is his talent is that of a 2nd line winger, a guy you can rely on for 20-25 goals. He simply does not have the talent to expect 30 or more goals year after year. And that might be the biggest issue of this entire roster, that Cozens still is here and playing meaningful minutes.

For sure. I am not a person who advocates change-for-the-sake-of-change. I do not think a few game losing streak necessitates moves. We are well beyond that however. You should not force a trade, but for the sake of the team, the wins and losses, the fans, and I am pretty sure some of the players something should be done with the roster. Terry Pegula going to Montreal and saying No Changes might have been one of the more damaging things that could have been done for moral of the fans and possible some of the actual players. Give me a few new faces. I'm good with anyone except for Dahlin and Thompson not being here. I will also take any set of new faces from the outside just to watch.

Numbers for the year as of the last game played: Jack Quinn with Dylan Cozens (275 minutes of ice time): 2.4 Goals for per 60. 4.14 goals allowed per 60. Jack Quinn without Dylan Cozens (283 minutes ice time): 3.39 goals for per 60. 2.54 goals allowed per 60. At least for this year, those numbers for Jack Quinn are much better without Cozens than when he is with him. I think most of us know getting Quinn to keep picking it up requires he not be on the ice with Dylan Cozens for a while.

I respect your pov. I just wonder how much better the 2nd line, and therefore the current team, would be with Cozens removed and replaced by a 'lesser' talented guy who is a 15 goals, 30 assist center who does not make the mistakes he does. I worry by keeping Cozens in his current position instead of moving him for someone else, even if the fans think it was a dumb trade, keeping him here instead may be hurting the team right now. I hope you are right about his potential if he stays here though.

I would strongly disagree on Cozens being even close to great. The more I watch him and isolate on him, the more I see a hockey player who is abysmal at the basics. One who hurts the team and drags down the play of his linemates. I see a huge number of more negative plays with Cozens than I do postive plays. I wish that was not the case. I would love if someone could convince me that there are positives to his game to counter all the things he does that are bad. I am not using sarcasm. I was neutral on him coming into the year. The 4-5 posters who bash him on a regular basis at first I thought were being too hard on him. I was at 2 games earlier this season and watched him in person thinking this board is being hard too hard on him. Instead I ended up agreeing with a lot of the comments about his shortcomings. If he is going to be a valuable player I suppose its possible. But it would take a lot more than him just getting on a scoring binge. He needs to become a different hockey player in most aspects of his play. If they can not move Cozens and his contract then of course I hope he fixes the bad parts of his game. It is very frustrating though when you see him have a game with no obvious blunders and a goal and think that he is turning the corner, only to then see the next 2-3 games in a row where he makes decisions as if he never played organized hockey previously.

It is hard to pick just one. Many of them are an issue, some more than others. -Terry Pegula. Everything starts with him. -Adams. They have 3 potentially good D-men, none of them great at a responsible, physical game. They also have a huge hole for a 2nd line. That is Roster construction --> Adams -Players. Cozens is very bad almost all around. UPL is having a sub-expectations year. Tage is great when healthy, but every month he has another ailment so he isn't reliabe to do what you need from him.

It is not lost on me that Pegula does not talk much about the Sabres but in the past he has spoken glowingly about Cozens. Also in the outdoor game against Toronto, Cozens was thrown out but instead of going to the dressing room, he stayed just outside the rink standing next to Terry Pegula talking and chatting things up. I think there is something to him being a favorite of Terry Pegula. You do not trade or bench the owners favorite player without his approval, especially if Pegula thinks Cozens is part of the solution and he does not recognize he is a big part of the problem.

I think that is exactly the rumor of what happened. They had a deal worked out with Detroit to send Cozens out but they decided not to because Tage is playing injured. I have heard that from a few different places. Friedman mentioned it and one of the hockey shows on 590 brought it up also. https://www.sportskeeda.com/us/nhl/rumor-nhl-trade-rumor-elliotte-friedman-links-detroit-red-wings-49-700-000-sabres-center Quite a bit of talk from Elliot Friedman in that article that is filled with maybes, possibilities, I heard from someone, stuff like that. But in that article, it mentions the possibility of the Sabres not doing a deal because Tage is injured and temporarily unable to take a faceoff.

Pittsburgh V Baltimore on right now. Pitt wearing the white shirts with the yellow pants, vs Baltimore with the purple tops and white pants. Might be one of the best, if not the best color combo to watch a game.

In addition to Cozens defensive gaffs, might be the most un-clutch top 6 forward in the league based on the bolded above.

I would take a mid level pick at this point for Cozens. He actively hurts whatever line he is on. I do not want to take credit for this as another posted put this up here a few weeks ago, but last year when he got hurt against Philadelphia, the Sabres were struggling on the PP. In the 3 or 4 games before his injury, Cozens was on the powerplay and the Sabres didn't score a single PP goal. He got hurt and missed 2 or 3 games and while he was out the Sabres scored a PP goal in every game he missed. As soon as he came back into the lineup he went right back onto every powerplay and the team then failed to score a PP goal for the next 3-4 games, with him on the PP unit for all of them. How does he get over 2 minutes of Powerplay ice time per game over the last 4 seasons. How is he out on the 1st or 2nd Powerplay unit almost every single game without fail for going on 4 seasons? Yet in 282 games played over that time, he has only 10 powerplay goals. Less than 1 goal every 28 games despite being on almost every single powerplay. As mentioned above, he must be a Terry Pegula favorite and thus is not allowed to be benched or removed from the Powerplay.

I see the point. I do realize the NHL is a much more complicated league than much lower levels of hockey. But one of the fundamentals I was coached as a kid playing hockey, as well as through my teenage years, is that the center in the defensive zone covers the slot / front of the net. If a D-man is in the corner with the puck, you trust him to make a play or the winger comes down the boards to help him if he is outnumbered. Before a center leaves the slot and goes into the corner, we were instructed to turn our head to make sure our opposite side winger was behind us so no opposing players are left uncovered in the slot. If you have no help behind you, or you can't turn your head to look, then you do not leave the slot. It is almost like teams scout the Sabres and know when Cozens it out there they can sucker him out of position and lead to easy chances. He falls for it often.

For many of those guys it is a scientific phenomena known as The Cozens Effect. Whatever players you put on the ice with him eventually become a zombie player, offensive play a shell of what they are without him, and defensively becoming a magnet for minuses on the scoresheet. Quinn, on the other hand, has scored 3 goals in 2 games and not made any bad defensive plays in either game. Why? Cozens has not been on the ice with him for any of his goals.

I do not think the above is true. Tage is not a great set-up guy, but he is a great goal scorer. His goal scoring in most cases seems to be a result of him having options to go to his left or right, natively being in the center position on the ice. As a full time wing, the position necessitates spending more time with one of the walls next to you. Point being, as a winger he potentially loses a lot of his scoring chances and ability. To me its not worth the gain of any increase in defensive ability another play may bring, in particular with this team where there really isn't anyone who would step in and be better than him in that regard anyway.

He was hired into a position with the parameters set by Pegula. The power of the GM, the way decisions making is among several people, that is on Pegula, not Adams.

The missing choice #5 for me. As the above posts said, they stick to the plan while continuing to lose, albeit as a slower rate than December.

This team needs addition by addition, not addition by subtraction. What it has been lacking is not enough addition by addition. Dylan Cozens is the only player that I think might be addition by subtraction, but not totally. You should not give him away but get something for him. Most of the rest of the core players, I can see your point of them needing more, and better help, not giving up on them.

Something thing I would like to add. I do not thing that many people who are fans through this playoff drought and Pegula ownership period came into this with a grudge against him. It took a lot of failure and some specific incidents by him to get many of us to where we are. He bought the team saying he was a fan of it. He said he would spend whatever it took to win a Cup. He implied he would spend up to the cap by saying there was no cap on coaches or scouts of other parts of the organization. I took that to mean the Sabres would have a team most of the time at the cap, one he would spend to build the best hockey department in the NHL. What was not to like? To see what has happened to the team through the years and see all the changes in the organization, all the new faces, with only Pegula being the same at or near the top of it. One can think over time that if no changes make things better, that the one thing that is the constant would indeed be the problem. Take that fuzzy logic, and then add some of the specific stories mentioned above that imply, if not state outright, that he has been a problem, and you have where we are now with Terry Pegula.