The Athletic Hockey Show - Senators deal Norris to Buffalo for Cozens

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

Sean McIndoe and Corey Pronman breakdown the trade involving Josh Norris, along with Jacob Bernard-Docker being moved to the Sabres in exchange for center Dylan Cozens, Dennis Gilbert, a 28 year old defensemen and a 2nd round pick in 2026.Hosts: Sean McIndoe and Corey PronmanExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff Domet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hello everyone and welcome to this special trade channel edition of the Athletic Hockey Show presented by E-Trade for Morgan Stanley. I am Sean McIndoo. I'm here with Corey Bromman and we have a trade to talk about. And it's a reasonably big one. We're here to trade about, talk about Dylan Cousins going from the Buffalo Sabres to the Ottawa Senators in a deal that we'll see Josh Norris and Jacob Bernard Docker going back. to Buffalo. Now, we should point out as we're recording this, this deal, I don't believe, is fully official. There may be some other pieces, especially there could be a piece going

from Buffalo to Ottawa, possibly a defenseman, maybe a prospect to pick something like that. We're not sure yet, but we don't think that's going to significantly change the impact of the deal one way or another. And this is a fun one to talk about because we all expected Dylan Cousins would potentially be on the move. He's been on trade boards. Josh Norris has been mentioned. And yet this feels like like kind of an old school hockey deal.

Corey, what's your initial response on two guys? Pretty young players. We don't often see young guys like this move for each other. You covered obviously both these guys extensively. It wasn't that long ago they were prospects. Where are you at on this trade? Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of interesting variables.

One is that it's interdivision. You know, you have, you know, you're going to see a lot of these players playing against each other now going forward. And while Jacob Bernard Docker is an okay player, he's a depth defenseman, I think in the NHL, really physical, competitive defenseman, but doesn't really have much offense, average size. Like, I don't think he's a significant part of this deal. To me, it's really about Josh Norris for Dillen Cousins. Two guys who both play the same position, their production has been. roughly been similar over the last season, season and a half.

And to me, this really comes down to what you think of Dylan Cousins. Because this is a guy who is super talented, Foreberg's number seven pick in his draft, 6-3 center, skates well. I think this year he's been really inconsistent. But over time, he's been a guy who's played hard, used his size, be able to score a reasonable level. It looked like a guy who had a really bright future, It's why he got that massive contract after his 30 goal, 70 points season,

look like a guy on the trajectory to becoming a legit first line center in the NHL for a very long time. And now he's taken a step back. So the question is, can he recover? And if so, to what degree? I think with Josh Norris, he's a really good all-round player. He's had some health issues, you know, decent size, good skater, good offense, good competitive, two-way play. but for me when I look at this trade and I think what's the worst case outcome for Dylan Cutt and I'm not really convinced worst case he's probably worse than Josh Norris but I don't

think he's substantially worse and if he bounces back he probably can be a lot better than Josh Norris so this to me just felt like Buffalo in the middle of a disaster season they're trying to shake things up, just like how they shook things up last year. They traded middle staff for Bowen Byron around the deadline. And I think they just were looking to make some changes to a core that they had given a lot of money and a lot of term to, not just cousins,

but obviously Tash Thompson, Power, Dalene and Tia Samuelson. So nothing's going to change here unless they change the pieces. It's not going to just magically change overnight. So they try to make a change here. We'll see whether it works or not. Cousins has owned a lot of money for a lot of years.

So I was hoping he could bounce back. I think he is a better player that he's shown this year. I'm not sure he can get all the way back to that, you know, that 3070 year and do that consistently. But I think he should be better going forward than what he's shown so far. You've mentioned the contracts a couple of times. So let's just lay those details out. Josh Norris is 25.

He has got five years left on a deal that pays 7.95 mill. million a season as far as the cap hit. Dylan Cousins, 24 years old, five years left, 7.1. So very similar contracts. But the senators are getting the guy who is a little bit younger and a little bit cheaper. And that can matter, especially if the guy they're getting is also a little bit better, which I think is the read that some of us are going to have on this situation. And clearly we've got to wait and see how this plays out, how guys adjust to their new teams.

This is the sort of deal. One of the great things about a deal like this, we're not going to know for years to come who, quote, unquote, wins the deal. But I have to say initial first reaction, I like this a lot more for Ottawa than I do for Buffalo, for a lot of the same reasons that you talk about as far as what's cousins upside. where can he get. I just feel this to me, if I'm a Sabres fan, is disappointing in the sense that we had heard Cousins name for a while. And it was always made clear that this wasn't a guy they were going to trade for a first

round pick or for a prospect or somebody to kick the can down the road. They wanted immediate help. Some of us maybe got out over our skis thinking is Dylan Cousins, the key piece of an Elias Patterson trade or, you know, something like that. And in the end, it feels like they just get another Dylan cousins back. And maybe it's worth it to shake things up, especially, you know, weird week where they're resigning a bunch of guys and kind of keeping the band together, even though the band hasn't been very good. But the other piece with Norris, and you touched on it a little bit, is the health. He has not been able to stay healthy.

and the knock on Josh Norris in Ottawa. We heard a lot of this from Bruce Garriac on TSN when this deal was announced, talking about how they just weren't convinced that Josh Norris played the sort of style they want to play. He didn't play that playoff style. Whereas Dylan Cousins. As I reported this, by the way, Buffalo had to add a second rounder in 2026, and that seems to be the main assets. So that's the other piece.

is a second rounder. So, I mean, okay, even more at this point, I like this deal a lot for Ottawa. I don't like it for Buffalo. You know, Dylan Cousins coming in. Look, he's not mid-90s, Eric Lindross. Let's not get carried away. But he's a little bit more of a hard-nosed guy.

So here's the argument in Buffalo's favor. Yeah. I think Dom tweeted out a good graphic about this as the deal was going down, is that both players are signed to, you know, AVs in the sevens right now. And they've been performing both this year around the 5.0 range. Yeah. So given that, that Ottawa is now picking up a second round pick, I like it even better for them.

Is there, what's the argument here from, from Buffalo's perspective? I don't want to, I don't want to be dunking on Kevin Adams and too much here. Give me the flip side. Give me the counterpoint on why this makes sense for Buffalo. Well, we could talk about Cousins Upside. fact that he is younger. Norris's health concerns over the years. But this season, I think you would argue that Josh Norris has been the better player than Dylan Cousins. Now, over the next three, four, five years, do I think that's going to be the case? My personal opinion is I think

Cousins will be the better player. But just based on how they've been this season, Cousins has definitely struggled to live up to what he was paid to be. And Norris has been a more important piece for Ottawa. That makes sense. We should also say Dennis Gilbert is going as well from Buffalo to Ottawa, to Ottawa. 28-year-old defensemen has played a little bit in the NHL this year. That's basically your replacement for Bernard Docker as far as being like the seventh

defenseman in Ottawa. So not a nothing piece, but probably not enough to move the needle. I don't know. Again, I... It's a fascinating trade because, like you said, it's really a hot. trade and it's a kind of trade where like when you do a rental trade you know you trade a first rounder for the rental like it's it's hard to really have egg on your face when that happens because you know what's usually part of the process the late first rounder is probably going to be a

good player how good you'll see with time even if it comes a really really good player manners don't usually get dunked on for trading a late first that ends up being a you know an impact player in five years down the line when you trade two players to play the same position and the same division who are both in the NHL currently, there is real potential for this to go really poorly for one of these teams. Yeah. And you know what it almost reminds me of, and I'm going back into the archives a bit here, but it's another Sabres deadline trade in 2012 when they flipped Zach Cassian for Cody Hodgson.

And that one was the one where kind of neither side really worked out great. And that could happen here. The last point I'll make on this is they've mentioned this again on TSN. Apparently, Josh Norris is very close with Brady Kachuk. So there is a chance here that from a chemistry perspective, that this doesn't necessarily play great with Ottawa. It's a very weird scene at the Ottawa practice where I guess they went on the ice and then they got pulled back off the ice.

I had a quick team meeting and then went back on the ice without those two guys. So Brady Kachuk might not be happy about this, but you know what? Ticked off Brady Kachuk is going to be a better Brady Kachuk in the playoffs, certainly. I don't mind that too much if I'm Ottawa. I guess I see where Buffalo is going. And certainly if Buffalo didn't make a move like this and they just kind of sidelined it today, people like me would be talking about how Kevin Adams needed to do something to shake it up. Well, this is a shakeup, but I don't love it very much.

And it sounds like you're maybe a little more optimistic, but not quite as much. Corey, thank you for joining. We will potentially be back as soon as there's other big moves. But until then, thank you for joining us. Keep up to date all day on the NHL Trade Deadline Day at The Athletic. And by following all our writers on social media, thank you for listening to The Athletic Hockey Show.