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 5 hours ago 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 41 minutes ago 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 26 minutes ago 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 29 minutes ago 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