This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Dylan Cozens
Ottawa Senators Center
Traded to Ottawa in March for Josh Norris after four seasons in Buffalo, and scored 47 points across the two clubs.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | BUF | 41 | 4 | 9 | 13 | -15 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 62 | 6.5 | 14:21 |
| 2021-22 | BUF | 79 | 13 | 25 | 38 | -19 | 55 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 160 | 8.1 | 15:54 |
| 2022-23 | BUF | 81 | 31 | 37 | 68 | -3 | 41 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 211 | 14.7 | 16:30 |
| 2023-24 | BUF | 79 | 18 | 29 | 47 | -4 | 42 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 200 | 9.0 | 17:14 |
| 2024-25 | BUF/OTT | 82 | 16 | 31 | 47 | -17 | 68 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 188 | 8.5 | 17:04 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 362 | 82 | 131 | 213 | -58 | 222 | 15 | 5 | 5 | 821 | 10.0 | 16:25 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
16 goals and 31 assists in 82 games across Buffalo and Ottawa — 47 points at 17:04 a night, minus-17, with 68 penalty minutes.
47.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 27th percentile, across 1,049 minutes. His ice went 51-43 against an expectation of 41.28-45.55 — ten goals better than expected for and three better than expected against, which is the opposite of what happened to most of the forwards in this chapter.
The Finesse Game
188 attempts at a median of 30 feet with 34 per cent from inside 20. The shot is a real one and the 8.5 per cent conversion last season was not.
He is a straight-line player. He gets to the net through the middle rather than around the outside and he is at his best carrying the puck with speed; asked to make a play in a small space he is ordinary.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 205 and he uses it. He finishes checks and he is hard to knock off a puck in a footrace.
68 penalty minutes in 82 games is the highest rate of his career and a good deal of it is the stick foul that follows losing a step. That is the part of the game that has to come down.
The Intangibles
Seventh overall in 2019 and a 68-point season at 21 that has not been matched since — 47, 47 and 47 in the three years after it, on a long contract signed off the back of the one good year.
He was traded to Ottawa in March for Josh Norris, which is a swap of two centres on expensive deals that neither club could make work. He is 24 and this is the season the trade gets judged on.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,049 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.5%
- 28th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.9%
- 51st pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 51 for, 43 against. Expected: 41.3 and 45.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 27 points above where the numbers do. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Usual linemates
2024-25 with BUF · 819 minutes at five-on-five
- Jack Quinn37%
- Zach Benson30%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2024-25
- The club
- OTT took 50.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.5% — 2.7 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,049 minutes at five-on-five — 68th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owen Power | 44.6% | 48.9% | 49.2% |
| Jack Quinn | 44.9% | 48.6% | 47.6% |
| Bowen Byram | 47.9% | 47.4% | 48.7% |
44.6% together, 48.9% for him apart and 49.2% for Power apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
250 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 16 of them goals. His median goal came from 30 feet. 34% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 25% from beyond forty.