Sabres Trade Dylan Cozens/Dennis Gilbert and 2026 2nd Round Pick to Ottawa for Josh Norris and Bernard Docker

[PerreaultForever]

4 hours ago, Pimlach said:

 I will concede that the team makeup, lots of young kids playing against grown men, makes it harder for our kids to get comfortable out there.  They are intimidated physically and mentally.  A big Adams mistake that he refuses to properly address.  

I agreed with your post overall but I pulled this out to draw attention to it. This is the core issue to me and it's been the core issue for a really long time. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

10 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

I agreed with your post overall but I pulled this out to draw attention to it. This is the core issue to me and it's been the core issue for a really long time. 

Makes the strategy of not blocking prospects look pretty stupid.  Kulich spent 100 games in the AHL, maybe a bunch of others should have as well.  

[freester]

21 hours ago, SABRES 0311 said:

It was a good thing to get rid of Cozens. With the number of games he has and years in the league, what you see is what he is. Third liner who is not a good special teams guy.

He’ll likely play for a handful of other teams before he’s done. Not all guys pan out to what they could’ve been.

He’s more similar to Girgensons than people here realize 

[LGR4GM]

35 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Makes the strategy of not blocking prospects look pretty stupid.  Kulich spent 100 games in the AHL, maybe a bunch of others should have as well.  

Like Quinn or Peterka, both whom spent 2 years in the ahl? 

Which players should have spent more time on the AHL?

[Archie Lee]

21 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Like Quinn or Peterka, both whom spent 2 years in the ahl? 

Which players should have spent more time on the AHL?

Peterka only spent one year in the AHL.  Quinn spent two...sort of.  There was no OHL season in 20-21 and the AHL played a shortened 29 game season with no playoffs.  Including the 10 game playoff run in 21-22, Quinn played a total of 70 AHL games and Peterka played 80.

I don't think there is any one player that was pushed into the NHL too quickly.  More generally, none of Cozens, Krebs, Peterka, Quinn, Benson, and Kulich needed to be in the NHL as soon as they were. With the possible exception of Cozens, since the WHL played a shortened 24 game season in 20-21, there is just no evidence that any would have been hurt by staying in junior, or the AHL for another year before graduating (maybe Cozens, as the WHL played a shortened covid-season in 20-21, that might have provided no value to his development).  Collectively, we simply had/have, too many young players on the team at the same time.  

Better yet, a couple of Peterka, Quinn, Benson, Kulich, and Rosen, should have been traded for veterans over the past two off-seasons.  We would still be quite young with a decent prospect pool.

Edited Sunday at 08:17 PM by Archie Lee

[Nitro60]

This off-season Adams has to infuse the team with veterans, specially some with grit, to get the young guys to the next level.  FA period will be watched closely.   They have shown that they cannot build through the draft only.   

[GASabresIUFAN]

47 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Like Quinn or Peterka, both whom spent 2 years in the ahl? 

Which players should have spent more time on the AHL?

Besides Cozens, Samuelsson, Power and ultimately Benson who should have gone back to Jrs and then to the AHL to physically develop and frankly to save his ELC.  

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Besides Cozens, Samuelsson, Power and ultimately Benson who should have gone back to Jrs and then to the AHL to physically develop and frankly to save his ELC.  

God no to Benson. 

Samuelsson yes. 

Power, probably but he wouldn't have signed his elc for Rochester. 

Cozens, at this point, he's not bad because he wasn't in the AHL. He's bad because of his play. 

[Thorner]

 

Edited Monday at 12:52 AM by Thorner

[Thorner]

On 3/8/2025 at 7:16 AM, inkman said:

Not sure if this was posted earlier in the thread

 

lol credit for not making a colossally bad deal? Haha 

On 3/8/2025 at 8:07 AM, DarthEbriate said:

At the time, Colorado needed a 2C and had redundant defensive depth in Byram. This season, Mitts appeared to collapse under the pressure (not all that surprising) and got the raw end of the deal with the injuries early in the season (MacKinnon/Rantanen/Makar were on the ice together and everyone else got AHL-level players) with their inept goaltending. It was an A+ move for the wrong player.

Seems like they applied Bernard-Docker's data to Cozens. JBD is just about due to come back from his high ankle sprain and was on LTIR with the Sens.

Rare lose lose trade 

[Thorner]

On 3/8/2025 at 10:03 AM, inkman said:

It’s only because of the injury concerns for Norris and a wild misconception around the league about Cozens on ice ability.  He’s literally not good at anything.  Norris bests him in every way. 

No, he doesn’t. Because the injury concerns aren’t just a variable we list and then dismiss away in the name of bias. It’s a real thing. He hasn’t played more than 66 games in a season, EVER. He WILL be injured, until proven otherwise - that would be the only reasonable way to look at it 

The deals are are means to WINNING. Winning is the context: not raw talent 

On 3/8/2025 at 10:22 AM, Brawndo said:

 

They always do shite like this. Trade for guys and say they are their new best player 

Edited Monday at 01:07 AM by Thorner

[Thorner]

On 3/8/2025 at 2:54 PM, _Q_ said:

This is all true.

 

This could be a real upgrade without creating another hole.

This is the dangerous thinking 

MAYBE he represents an upgrade on the current cozens. We needed top 6 help when we thought we had 68 point cozens! We’d have *never* traded that Cozens for Norris. We should be hoping this swap represents a redo on Cozens and back to square one, if lucky

i cannot stress this enough: Adams hasn’t *done* anything yet

On 3/8/2025 at 4:40 PM, SABRES 0311 said:

It was a good thing to get rid of Cozens. With the number of games he has and years in the league, what you see is what he is. Third liner who is not a good special teams guy.

He’ll likely play for a handful of other teams before he’s done. Not all guys pan out to what they could’ve been.

He’ll have a long career in the nhl haha 

Edited Monday at 01:04 AM by Thorner

[Thorner]

7 hours ago, Archie Lee said:

It's going to take some time to sort out if this was a good trade for the Sabres.  My one prediction is this:  it will become clear fairly quickly that Dylan Cozens was not single-handedly dragging the Sabres down from being a team that could compete to make the playoffs to being a basement dweller.

Ya don’t say 

Watching this thread go to “well we actually got by far the clear best player” in a matter of pages was a little disappointing. Come on dudes 

[GASabresIUFAN]

1 hour ago, Thorner said:

Ya don’t say 

Watching this thread go to “well we actually got by far the clear best player” in a matter of pages was a little disappointing. Come on dudes 

We did get the better player when healthy.  He is a better scorer, he’s better defensively, he’s better in the FO circle and plays both special teams.  Cozens was a disaster on the PP, struggled defensively and didn’t kill penalties.  Cozens is also an 8% shooter.

The only reason Norris was available was his injury history.  

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, Thorner said:

Ya don’t say 

Watching this thread go to “well we actually got by far the clear best player” in a matter of pages was a little disappointing. Come on dudes 

Idk if we got a clear better player, I don't think we got worse though. 

Also, let ppl have a little hope. 

[Thorner]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

Idk if we got a clear better player, I don't think we got worse though. 

Also, let ppl have a little hope. 

1 hour ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

We did get the better player when healthy.  He is a better scorer, he’s better defensively, he’s better in the FO circle and plays both special teams.  Cozens was a disaster on the PP, struggled defensively and didn’t kill penalties.  Cozens is also an 8% shooter.

The only reason Norris was available was his injury history.  

“Best player when healthy” isn’t a very strong argument on its own re: “the better player overall” when his injury history is Bogosian-esque

It keeps being said, “if he stays healthy”. It should be, “assuming he continues to occasionally struggle with health concerns.” That’s not a negative viewpoint, I would argue it’s not a matter of being positive or negative. It’s about an acknowledgment of the actual documented statically history and the most likely result based on that. There’s a clear established trend, it’s not some sort of 50/50 proposition. This is exactly the same argument I made re: a Comrie

I’ve seen almost no discussion paid to the idea of how we structure the lineup under the terms of assuming we get about 60 or so from Norris. Hope for more of course 

 

It may seem a trivial distinction or needlessly negative, but it’s truly not: it’s functional. It’s a very important aspect of some of these moves, baked into why these are players we are getting. The reason their raw talent is so good is specially because the concerns are legitimate. I don’t agree with the critics who say the Norris deal is low upside, I see the opposite. The volatility of where these guys eventually end up is baked into why they were available.

Byram-esque imo 

Edited Monday at 03:51 AM by Thorner

[PerreaultForever]

10 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Makes the strategy of not blocking prospects look pretty stupid.  Kulich spent 100 games in the AHL, maybe a bunch of others should have as well.  

Yup the not blocking prospects things has always been absurd. 

[LGR4GM]

Oh man Cozens scored a goal, Ottawa wins the trade now!? Ahhhhhhh

[mjd1001]

Just now, LGR4GM said:

Oh man Cozens scored a goal, Ottawa wins the trade now!? Ahhhhhhh

Well, Cozens could score 40 next year and it wouldn't matter much to many of us.  He wasn't doing it here, he showed no signs he was going to do it here.

[Thorner]

2 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

Well, Cozens could score 40 next year and it wouldn't matter much to many of us.  He wasn't doing it here, he showed no signs he was going to do it here.

Can you perhaps elaborate? 

[Second Line Center]

1 hour ago, mjd1001 said:

Well, Cozens could score 40 next year and it wouldn't matter much to many of us.  He wasn't doing it here, he showed no signs he was going to do it here.

 

Yes it absolutely would.  
 

Yet another player jettisoned to only flourish at his new destination. 
 

If this happens with Cozens and I expect it will, thats an indictment of the organization.  
 

ROR, Ullmark, Reinhart, Eichel, and a few others - I really like Zadorov. 
 

Further begs the question why is this organization so toxic.  

[...]

3 minutes ago, Second Line Center said:

 

Yes it absolutely would.  
 

Yet another player jettisoned to only flourish at his new destination. 
 

If this happens with Cozens and I expect it will, thats an indictment of the organization.  
 

ROR, Ullmark, Reinhart, Eichel, and a few others - I really like Zadorov. 
 

Further begs the question why is this organization so toxic.  

[PerreaultForever]

On 3/9/2025 at 12:18 PM, GASabresIUFAN said:

Makes the strategy of not blocking prospects look pretty stupid.  Kulich spent 100 games in the AHL, maybe a bunch of others should have as well.  

It was interesting in the Edmonton broadcast tonight DeBrusk was saying the exact same thing when asked for his opinion on why the rebuilds keep failing. You need veterans and veteran leaders. 

[sabremike]

3 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

It was interesting in the Edmonton broadcast tonight DeBrusk was saying the exact same thing when asked for his opinion on why the rebuilds keep failing. You need veterans and veteran leaders. 

Can you win with kids?

Are you Sir Alex Ferguson?

If so, congratulations! You can win with kids.

If you aren't Sir Alex?

NOPE.

[mjd1001]

7 hours ago, Second Line Center said:

 

Yes it absolutely would.  
 

Yet another player jettisoned to only flourish at his new destination. 
 

If this happens with Cozens and I expect it will, thats an indictment of the organization.  
 

ROR, Ullmark, Reinhart, Eichel, and a few others - I really like Zadorov. 
 

Further begs the question why is this organization so toxic.  

Wrong.

It may be an idictment of the organiztion, but as I said it wasn't happening here.

For 5 years he has been a negative player defensively. For 5 years he has not made his linemates better. For 4 of those 5 years, he has been put in a situation where he has been a regular on the PP and a #2 center and has been one of the absolute worst players in that role in the entire league.

Peterka and Kulich are young and while not perfect, early signs are they are better (Peterka) and MUCH better (Kulich) than Cozens ever was away from the puck, and better overall with shooting scoring. They have been in this organization their entire careers so far.  Thompson turned into one of the best scorers in the league while here. Tuch blossomed into one of the better clutch players/best forcheckers/30 goal scorer here (and it looks like it may be more than one year.)

This organization and the development staff here is bad, they should be turning out more good players than they are.   But some players have succeeded here and gotten better. Cozens was never that good and he was getting worse. He needed to go.

Cozens was a BAD hockey player here. 2 coaches, 3 'system's in the past 3 years. It was NOT changing here.

Edited 23 hours ago by mjd1001