Young Sabres Star Calls His Teammates Soft After Tough Loss

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James Connelly
December 3, 2023 (3:36 PM)

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The Buffalo Sabres have been struggling in the absence of Tage Thompson and one of their youngsters is trying to rally the troops by calling them out.

Cozens Calls Out His Teammates

The Buffalo Sabres have been falling far behind expectations so far this year. They are currently 10-12-2 and sit at 7th in the Atlantic division. Many expected them to compete for a playoff spot this year but a sub .500 record in December will make things quite difficult for them.

The one category where the team has fallen off the most is their offense. They currently don't have a single player scoring at over a point-per-game rate and all but 5 of their players have scored more than 13 points at the 24-game mark.

For comparison, last season they had three players scoring over a point-per-game rate and had two more score 65+ points. This stark falloff has been noticed by their players, specifically 22-year-old Dylan Cozens.

Cozens said the following about the Sabres season thus far:

"We're too easy to play against, and we need to get a little 'F you' in our game. I think we had more of that last year. We're way too soft this year. I feel like we don't kill plays. We kind of get bullied. We need to finish more checks, be harder to play against, stronger on puck battles. We need to kill plays in the defensive zone." - Dylan Cozens

Cozens' Struggles This Season

Part of why the Sabres have struggled is Cozens' struggles himself. Last year at 21 years old Cozens scored 31 goals and had 68 points which was a breakout year for him. Many thought the 2019 7th overall pick would build off of this success but he has regressed instead.

So far Cozens has scored 4 goals and 11 points through 22 games, numbers that simply are not good enough for the Sabres. If Cozens is able to bounce back and reestablish his game, the Sabres could very well follow suit and Cozens could help lead them to their first playoff birth in over a decade.

As seen on Hockey OTB - Cozens Calls Out His Teammates For Being Too Soft and Easily Bullied