Man, I'm going to have to push back hard against the crowd saying no to dammage's proposal. Its a great trade for us, and we really need to have some foresight here - Any deal involving Cozens for Andersson in even a somewhat lateral swap is a win for us. It's as close as you can get to a repeat of the Hamilton/Ferland - Lindholm/Hanifin trade.
Yes Andersson is a top-pairing defenseman in his prime right now, but he's also 2 years away from FA and we'd need to lock him in long-term, high-salary, into his mid-30s, which has its obvious risks. Pospisil's style of play, injury history and fan-favorite status is very reminiscent of Ferland in Calgary, who really turned into nothing with Carolina. And his career was eventually cut short by those injuries.
Cozens has all the makings of a 1st line center waiting for a change in scenery before he pops. I don't know if it's the same doubters doubting Cozens as the ones who called Lindholm a "40-pt player" and Necas a "40-pt player". The careers of these types of guys are so eerily similar you can basically predict their career arcs without even claiming to know the future. Once highly toughted young guy struggling in a stale environment gets a change in scenery/usage and pops - it's so common that most GMs on rebuilding teams specifically target these types of players in trade.
The foresight part applies because we want to target and acquire these types of players before they pop. Obviously they wouldn't be available after they pop. You can now make a pretty good argument that not getting Necas in a Tkachuk trade was short-sighted by Tre, or ownership or whoever was in charge, regardless of whether we were trying to compete or rebuild. The exactly same situation may be presenting itself if Cozens is on the table, and we should take advantage of it this time.
The same applies to Krebs, but in a smaller scale (slightly lower ceiling), imo.
I know it was just a suggestion by a poster and we don't know if it's even remotely discussed. I'm just saying if something like this is available, I'd jump on it.
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