Sabres at the trade deadline
A day that had a lot of questions surrounding what GM Kevyn Adams would do sees a massive change made in the core of the group with Dylan Cozens going to Ottawa.
The biggest questions surrounding the Buffalo Sabres headed into the 2024 NHL trade deadline surrounded whether they would keep or trade their soon-to-be unrestricted free agents Jason Zucker, Jordan Greenway, Henri Jokiharju, Dennis Gilbert, and Jacob Bryson. The thought of making bigger trades seemed like a longshot because those are, traditionally, harder to make in-season, especially at the deadline.
About that.
Buffalo traded Dylan Cozens, Gilbert, and a 2026 second-round pick to the division rival Ottawa Senators for forward Josh Norris and defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker.
It’s an eye-opening trade and one that signals that general manager Kevyn Adams needed to shake things up. He made it clear that the trades he wanted to make were hockey trades and to get NHL players in if he was moving NHL players out. He accomplished that and made it clear that the direction the team has gone with the core of Cozens, Tage Thompson, Mattias Samuelsson, and captain Rasmus Dahlin needed a shake, an adjustment.
Trading Cozens is a seismic move for the organization. The Sabres are cashing out on a player they thought would become an annual 30-goal scorer and speedy and physical force otherwise. Two seasons ago, Cozens had 31 goals and 68 points, numbers that make up a significant percentage of his career totals. It was that season that led Adams to sign him to a seven-year, $49.1 million extension to lock him in. It’s risky to sign any player off a career-year, but a player at his age at the time (22 years old) who just exploded offensively, you’re thinking this is just the beginning and getting that deal done turns into an immediate steal.
At some point, things took a turn.
There are a couple of moments where you could point to where it got tougher for Cozens and things changed. Don Granato slowed the team down from the run-and-gun game they employed during that 2022-2023 season to try and have the team grow up and become a better well-rounded team is one. Everyone’s offensive numbers dipped and, sure, there were injuries for players, but the way the offense fell off from 293 goals in 22-23 to 244 in 23-24 (mostly thanks to the power play falling off a cliff from one year to the next) affected everyone.
There’s a more commonly cited moment when it all changed for Cozens. It was November 3, 2023, and the fight he lost to Flyers forward Garnet Hathaway seemed to alter his approach to the game completely.
Hathaway hammered on Cozens and injured his face enough that he had to wear a bubble face shield for the next week or so, something that made Cozens miserable to do. The physical intensity he played each game with was definitely reserved while he had the bubble on but when it came off, anecdotally speaking, it was apparent less so than it had been.
Cozens’ willingness to engage physically after whistles and his willingness to drop the gloves waned despite the fact that his hit numbers doubled in 2023-2024 and were way up again this season. The Sabres probably didn’t want Cozens to fight since his role with the team and organization became much more important, but that wasn’t something that stopped him from engaging with opponents and playing at 100 miles an hour.
Before the Hathaway fight, Cozens had four fights in the NHL and following it he had three: one more in that 2023-2024 season and one in each of the next two seasons. How many times a guy fights isn’t really an indication of anything though since you need to have a guy who also wants to fight engage, but there’s a matter of the stats, too, and what’s interesting is the idea that getting hammered by Hathaway made him worse off may not be entirely accurate.
Before and including the game against Philadelphia, here are Cozens’s stats:
212 GP – 51 G, 75 A – 126 PTS —135 PIM
0.24 GPG — 0.59 PPG — 0.64 PIM/G
After that fight and now the end of his Sabres career:
129 GP – 26 G, 45 A — 71 PTS — 81 PIM
0.20 GPG — 0.55 PPG — 0.62 PIM/G
The drop-off in points is essentially directly attributed his slight drop in goal scoring and that brings us back to what happened in Granato’s final season behind the Sabres bench. Granato was Cozens’s second coach in the NHL after a brief initial experience with Ralph Krueger and getting a couple of different iterations of hockey under Granato may have made things a bit confusing. Going from Granato to Lindy Ruff likely made for a massive change in approach given how each of those coaches handle things.
This isn’t meant to make an excuse for Cozens, but it highlights a potential part of the problem when a roster is built really young and a host of different coaches cycle through with different systems, methodologies, and ways they teach the game (or don’t). It’s been an issue for years, particularly when they were changing coaches every two years and when you’re trying to bring young stars up in the NHL and the voice is different and the tactics are constantly changing, it’s no wonder that sometimes guys get lost in the mix.
How things finished with Cozens makes for a fascinating conclusion in Buffalo and trading him to a division rival, a fellow team that’s been trying to right their own ship for years and have passed the Sabres will create drama for years to come. After watching Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart traded from Buffalo and go on to win Stanley Cups, all eyes will be on Cozens to see if he can turn his game around and spur Ottawa to the playoffs and potentially beyond.
When it comes to Josh Norris and Jacob Bernard-Docker, the players Buffalo got in return for Cozens, the word that keeps coming back in how to analyze it is “if.”
If Norris stays healthy (he’s had numerous surgeries in the same shoulder the past few years) and continues to create goals and offensive chances off the rush the way he could in Ottawa, it’s a great pickup.
In 2021-2022, Norris scored a career-high 35 goals with 16 of them on the power play. He accomplished that feat in 66 games which is impressive to say the least. But over the past three seasons, he’s played in 111 games and scored 38 goals. The shoulder issues have been heartbreaking to watch because that breakout season he had was a signal that a new big-time offensive start appeared to arrive in a massive way.
Norris has been an opportunity scorer throughout his career and his career shooting percentage of 18.0 is freakshow kind of stuff. He’s also been an outstanding faceoff guy for his career (52.5 percent) and is at 53.8 percent this season. He’s solid at 5-on-5, he’s a power play scorer, and he’s a penalty killer. A healthy Norris is an outstanding player and if he can stay on the ice, he should be a very good player for the Sabres.
That’s a huge if, though. He’s missed eight games this season including a six-game absence due to an upper-body injury recently which he returned from following the Four Nations Face-Off break. If his shoulder is good and he can avoid bad luck, he should do well in Buffalo.
As for Bernard-Docker, the 24-year-old who played college hockey at North Dakota is still relatively green in the NHL. He’s got 129 games under his belt over the past five seasons and became a regular in Ottawa last season when he played 72 games with the Senators. This season, Bernard-Docker has a goal and three assists in 25 games. He’s averaged third-pairing minutes to this point in his career which makes sense but coming to Buffalo you have to suspect he’ll get an opportunity to work with Owen Power at some point. His possession numbers are fine and have improved this year, but he’s really just getting his career in the NHL under way.
Bernard-Docker is absolutely a more defensive defenseman which, yeah, good idea to grab someone with that kind of focus because the Sabres need that. If the idea is to pair him with Power at some point and in the future, adding a right-handed defensive-minded defenseman is the right call. He’s been out of action since Dec. 28 because of a high-ankle sprain which is why his games are down this season, but he is healthy now and only didn’t get back in the Senators lineup because of salary cap issues.
The Sabres giving up Gilbert and a 2026 second-round pick to help land Bernard-Docker is an acceptable price all things considered. They had to make room on the blue line to add him and Gilbert was playing mostly because he was playing the bodyguard role. He was meant to be a depth guy and did just fine in that role. The pick is the cost of doing business to get another player out of Ottawa. It’s fine, whatever, we yelled about picks enough when they traded a second for Beck Malenstyn at the 2024 Draft.
The trade is massive because of what it means to part ways with Cozens, but if Norris produces like he has and stays healthy, and Bernard-Docker can be a steady player in the defense corps it’s a winner of a deal even if Cozens becomes the player the Sabres thought he’d become back in 2023. It’ll be a lot more annoying if that happens, mind you, but Adams and the Sabres had to do something to give the team and everyone a jolt. This should do it and if it doesn’t… there are a lot more problems than we know.
“You evaluate that as you go and you say, ‘What’s working, what’s not working,’ and you can’t be afraid of making changes, you can’t be afraid of making big, big trades,” Adams told media in Florida. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say part of the reason that we were really open to a big trade is how the season’s gone. But these are hard trades to make. We trade out some good players and we’re excited by the return, but these are hard, hard days, but at the end of the day when I kind of get to this point (where) I’m talking to you guys, I feel like we accomplished our goal of coming into the trade deadline period of making our team better.”
Making the right calls
One thing Adams no doubt got right at this deadline was re-signing both Greenway and Zucker.
The Sabres signed Greenway to a two-year, $8 million extension on Wednesday and got Zucker done on Friday with a two-year, $9.5 million extension. Something we kept harping on leading up to the deadline was about how both of these players were guys the Sabres should want to keep around. They’ve been the adults in the room all season, led by example, and the roles they’ve played they’ve played to the hilt.
Buffalo has wanted guys to be hard to play against for years and Greenway fits that description perfectly. Ever since he’s returned from injury following the Four Nations break, he’s played some really good hockey. He’s been physical, good on the PK, and made life harder on opponents through his forechecking and his presence. Getting that extension done by the deadline was good business and the cost wasn’t one that’s regrettable at all. He’s also the example of what it means to make a solid addition at the trade deadline, they just needed more like that at that particular deadline in 2023.
In Zucker’s case, he showed why dipping into free agency for solid veterans is a good idea, too. He’s done everything that’s been asked of him this season and you could argue that for all the issues the Sabres power play has had this year, they’d be infinitely worse had they not added him in the summer. The way he’s able to get around the net in all situations and have no fear in doing so serves as an example to the younger guys about what it takes to get things done sometimes. Skill takes you so far, but mucking around the net can get the job done.
It’s maybe a coincidence that since he’s been out of action with a lower-body injury after blocking a shot against the Rangers that the Sabres’ fortunes have fallen on hard times recently. He tried to fight through it against the Ducks, but didn’t last long that game. He’s been out ever since, and Buffalo has lost five in a row. He’s a classic good-in-the-room guy and that he can provide guidance on and off the ice for the players is a huge bonus. Giving guys like him and Greenway away for draft picks would’ve done them no good and it’s wise that they’re keeping them around.
So long, Henri
The Sabres blue line got further loosened up when they sent Henri Jokiharju to Boston for a 2026 fourth-round pick.
Jokiharju had been in and out of the lineup all year going from pairing with Owen Power to being a healthy scratch. He had a great set of games at Four Nations for Finland, and it was a genuine joy to see him playing good hockey and being trusted by coach Antti Pennanen in that tournament.
His time in Buffalo isn’t one that will stand out through franchise history, but he will be remembered as a time when the Sabres 100-percent won a trade the second it was completed when they got him from Chicago for Alex Nylander. Henri’s one of the good guys around hockey and a classic “tries hard, loves the game” players.
Buffalo’s hopes were higher for Jokiharju when they acquired him, but he’s another young player who got to learn three different systems in five years (four in six counting his year in Chicago). When it’s a young defenseman having to do that, it’s so much tougher to get comfortable. Best of luck to him in Boston where he’ll get to team up with Casey Mittelstadt for a little while once again.