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Could the Flames be a good landing spot for Buffalo’s Dylan Cozens?
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Photo credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images
Ryan Pike
Jan 9, 2025, 14:00 ESTUpdated: Jan 9, 2025, 02:53 EST
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Friends, we’re just shy of two months away from the 2025 NHL trade deadline, which lands on Mar. 7 this season.
In advance of that occasion, our friends at Daily Faceoff are looking at some trade-related topics each and every day. On Wednesday, our pal Matt Larkin dug into six possible landing spots for Buffalo Sabres centre Dylan Cozens.
Among them? The Calgary Flames.
Here’s a snippet:
Why he makes sense: At the NHL level and in their prospect pipeline, the Flames have a dearth of right-handed centers. They’re also competitive sooner than they probably expected to be after GM Craig Conroy (wisely) sold off so many core pieces over the past year and a half. If they’re no longer bad enough that they can compete for a Draft Lottery win, should they take their first steps toward accelerating their rebuild? They still have many more years of Mackenzie Weegar, Jonathan Huberdeau and Nazem Kadri under contract, not to mention Blake Coleman and Yegor Sharangovich, so perhaps they should add a forward in his true prime to lineup that isn’t bad enough to tank fully anyway. With a little more than $70 million in cap spending right now and Andrei Kuzmenko’s $5.5 million coming off the books this summer, the $7.1 million AAV on Cozens fits into the payroll easily.
Larkin also made a case for Cozens to potentially be traded to Chicago, Detroit, Nashville, Philadelphia and Vancouver. The Sabres are having a challenging season and the perception is that they’ll probably be exploring some changes before the trade deadline, with Cozens representing one of their most attractive potential trade chips.
Cozens would obviously be a long-term asset add for the Flames given his age (he’s 23) and the potential acquisition cost (hefty). Larkin points out the price tag and the timing of the move as potential reasons the Flames might not want to pull the trigger: “Half a season isn’t enough to cement their ascension. They may want to keep fortifying their pipeline another year.”
Do you think the Flames would be a good landing spot for Cozens? Let us know in the comments!

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