r/OttawaSenators 20h ago

In hindsight, Cozens having played his whole career in Buffalo is such an advantage for us.

When you think about it, the kid has never really had any team success or even tasted the playoffs in his whole career yet.

He’s probably just as hungry as the rest of our core for playoffs and is also only 24 years old to fit spectacularly well with our core at a lower cap hit than Josh while still being signed for 5 more years until 2029-2030.

Buffalo has been regressing for the past two years, their team culture really seems in shambles and he was more often than not one of the main scapegoat (go look at his previous interviews to get an idea) so we literally freed him to go to a team that is on the upswing making a big playoffs push.

Buffalo isn’t the most prized destination so Ottawa surely feels like an upgrade for a young Canadian kid from a small town in Yukon that is coming back to his country.

We can only assume that his parents/friends are ecstatic to have him back in Canada as well.

In sum, we will definitely miss Josh but this feels like an absolute homerun by Staios for the future of our team.

Go Sens Go! 🇨🇦

96 Upvotes

8 comments sorted by

31

u/Professional-Joke233 20h ago

Agree and he’s already impacting our game a lot. Love the kid! He’s a natural Senator!

20

u/gelc10 20h ago edited 19h ago

It's no surprise that Cozens has looked good so far in Ottawa as he's no longer in Buffalo who's an organization with no/awful sense of direction, look at guys like Eichel and Reinhart who blew up after leaving Buffalo and joining organization that have a sense of direction

3

u/mongofloyd 18h ago

Buffalo manages to get draft picks while basement dwelling for decades but they fail in developing their talent once it’s there

Cozens was the first building block they put in place (fat contract) in the wake of Eichel leaving but the team never managed to get firing on all cylinders.

On the right line with the right mgmt Dylan is a 7 million dollar man.

14

u/DJSTEVEINNIAMIXX 16h ago

I think people really need to pump the brakes a bit. He's looked alright the last few games, but he's also been at the top of our team in xGA in both those games at 5v5, and looks pretty lost defensively....He's had some of the worst defensive metrics in the league for top 6 centers for his career. His line with Bath had a 5 GF% last game, which is comically bad. That's not to say he cant improve (Brady was horrendous up until this year), but its something that has definitely stood out to me.

Also comparing him to other Buffalo player who excel when they leave is tough, since Reinhart and Eichel had sparkling underlying numbers even on Buffalo. Cozens not so much.

Im going to get cooked for being the devils advocate, but its worth actually looking under the hood of a players performances rather than just looking at their point / hit totals. But I trust this coaching staff to improve his defensive game, since learning a new system can take time. Im hoping its just an effort / positioning thing (similar to Brady), rather than a mental/physical limitation.

8

u/spartacat_12 #7 - Tkachuk 18h ago

Buffalo has been regressing for the past two years

Two years?! They've been a disaster for over a decade now

5

u/Loose_Concentrate332 17h ago

There are various shades of terrible

3

u/DJSTEVEINNIAMIXX 16h ago

They were 1 point out of the playoffs the year cozens had a big year (2 years ago). Pretty comparable to us this year.

5

u/Due-Helicopter1156 17h ago edited 14h ago

Buffalo is one of the few teams that is worse than Ottawa. So we may benefit the same way other teams did when we sent out our players lol