Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff examines some possible trade targets for the Red Wings to utilize to replace the injured-and-out-for-the-season Andrew Copp in the lineup. Among them:
Dylan Cozens, Buffalo Sabres
On the wish list of most Red Wings fans, this would be top priority. That’s understandable. Cozens is 24. He’s an ideal long-term add to a team that is growing together as a group. Cozens has seven years left on a contract with an AAV of $7.1 million.
Here’s the issue with this move. The Sabres want to make a hockey trade, similar to the Casey Mittelstadt for Bowen Byram deal made at last year’s deadline. In trade talks, NHL sources tell DHN the Red Wings offer has been a package of prospects and draft picks.
Ryan Strome, Anaheim Ducks
Strome scored against the Wings in Sunday’s game, which he seems to do a lot when he plays Detroit. In 26 games facing the Red Wings, Strome has seven goals.
He’s 31, with two years to go on a pact paying him $5 million per season. He’s been playing as Anaheim’s No. 1 center. Strome’s game is more suited to the middle-six role he’d be given in Detroit.
Continued with four more targets; we all know that very few tidbits escape the Red Wings’ front office, but it makes sense that the Wings wouldn’t want to move an NHL player off their roster for Cozens, and that the Sabres would prefer exactly what the Wings aren’t offering.
When the Buffalo News’s Mike Harrington suggested that the Sabres shouldn’t make a move unless they get a Raymond or Seider in return, he wasn’t kidding. The Sabres would probably want Kasper, Edvinsson and/or Johansson, too. That’s a no-go.
