With Their $49.7 Million Extension For Dylan Cozens, The Buffalo Sabres Place Another Bet On Their Young Core

Rich with promising talent and pushing for their first playoff spot in 12 seasons, the Buffalo Sabres locked up another key member of their young core on Tuesday. The club announced that it had signed center Dylan Cozens to a seven-year contract extension which carries a cap hit of $7.1 million per season.

ADVERTISEMENT

Drafted seventh overall by the Sabres in 2019, Cozens turns 22 this Thursday and is in the midst of a breakout season. With 43 points in 49 games, he ranks fifth offensively on one of the NHL’s highest-scoring teams. His role has also increased this season: he’s averaging a career high 16:36 per game and has become the team leader in faceoffs taken. With experienced veterans generally dominating the top of the face-off rankings, Cozens’ win rate of 49.4% is impressive for a player who’s still on his entry-level contract.

A big body at 6’3” and 195 pounds, Cozens has a well-rounded skill set. But according to his coach Don Granato, it’s the mental side of his game that drives his success.

“I keep saying the same thing about him, it’s compete,” Granato said in December, per the Sabres’ website. “Just couple that with love of the game that he has, the love of the game of hockey. He competes for the right reason being in a team sport. He brings guys in with him, he drags people into the fight, per se, which is a real indicator of his leadership and leadership ability going forward.”

ADVERTISEMENT

In 169 career NHL games, Cozens has 30-64-94. That ranks him third in scoring among players from his 2019 draft class behind Jack Hughes of the New Jersey Devils (216 GP, 79-96-175) and Trevor Zegras of the Anaheim Ducks (150 GP, 44-73-117). Hailing from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Cozens also has a gold medal as part of Team Canada from the 2020 World Junior Championship.

Cozens’ new deal marks the third significant contract extension handed out by Sabres GM Kevyn Adams in the last six months. Per CapFriendly, on August 30 he locked up his team’s leading scorer, now-25-year-old Tage Thompson, on a seven-year extension that is just a hair richer than Cozens’, at a total value of $50 million. Then, on Oct. 12, he inked 22-year-old stay-at-home defenseman Mattias Samuelsson to a seven-year pact worth $30 million. Like with Cozens, those contracts will also take effect for the upcoming 2023-24 season.

After many years of spinning their wheels, the Sabres look to finally be making their way onto more stable ground. In June of 2020, Adams took over as GM when Jason Botterill was fired. Then, with the Sabres mired in last place in the league in March 0f 2021, Ralph Krueger was removed from behind the bench and replaced with his then-assistant, Granato.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Sabres showed signs of improvement in the 2021-22 season, but ultimately finished 25 points out of a playoff spot in the NHL’s Eastern Conference. This year, they’re in a tight race for the second wild-card berth, fighting it out with the Pittsburgh Penguins, New York Islanders and Florida Panthers.

After operating well below the NHL’s $82.5 million salary-cap ceiling at just over $64 million this season, the Sabres now have nearly $59 million committed to 17 players for 2023-24. With an expected salary-cap ceiling of $83.5 million, still potentially subject to change, there’s no immediate cap-crunch looming. But Adams is likely budgeting for a significant increase in the cap ceiling for the 2024-25 season, when he’ll owe new deals to his two first-overall picks on the blue line, Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power, as well as another pair of first-rounders up front in Casey Mittelstadt and Peyton Krebs, and emerging star goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tuesday’s announcement of Cozens’ contract extension comes on the same day that tennis star Jessica Pegula posted an article on The Players’ Tribune about her mother, Sabres co-owner and president Kim Pegula. In the article, Jessica clarified concerns about her mother’s health, confirming that Kim, 53, went into cardiac arrest last June and that, while she continues to make daily improvements in her recovery, a long and difficult road remains ahead.

The Sabres are currently on their bye week after the all-star break. Their next game will be on Saturday at KeyBank Center, against the Calgary Flames.