There was a distinct ping of puck off crossbar followed by the requisite hooting of players on both benches Saturday morning in LECOM Harborcenter.
While the Sabres' first training camp scrimmage was a "no-hitter" as you might expect, there was no doubt about the speed and skill on display. And Dylan Cozens gave us one of the signature moments with a bar-down snipe that burned Malcolm Subban. It was a goal scorer's special: Soft hands, quick shot, perfect placement.
"That feels good to get a goal obviously in something like kind of a bragging rights game against each other," a laughing Cozens said afterward. "So I'm gonna chirp 'Subby' about that one for sure."
Scoring goals is going to be no laughing matter for Cozens this season. In his third NHL campaign, it's going to be the 21-year-old's serious point of emphasis after a 13-goal season in 2021-22.
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In the first five months of last season, Cozens had 12 goals and a shooting percentage of 11.4%. In March and April, just one goal on 57 shots – or 1.8%. It was 28 games of frustration as Cozens had no shortage of scoring opportunities.
It's why when he went to Finland for the World Championships with Team Canada that his priority was to regain a scoring touch.
"I just wanted to go there and find the back of the net after kind of a slump at the end of last season," Cozens said. "I needed to go and get a confidence boost going into this year."
"He and I had a really good chat before he left after the season," GM Kevyn Adams said when camp opened Thursday. "I said, 'What is your goal? Don't just go over there to go and play some more hockey. What are you looking to get out of this?'
"And he said, 'I want to score goals. I know I can score goals in the National Hockey League .I know I'm getting chances. But I want to go over there and find my scoring touch.'"
That's exactly what happened. Moving to left wing while playing with Ottawa's Drake Batherson and Winnipeg's Pierre-Luc Dubois, Cozens piled up seven goals and 13 points in 10 games. He finished tied for the tournament lead in goals and third in scoring.
"I just kind of had that mindset of being a shooter and shooting the puck, and I think I had some decent success there," Cozens said.
Of note about the tourney was Cozens saying he had fun trying out left wing. While he's likely to be a center most of the time here, Cozens showed the kind of versatility coach Don Granato wanted to see.
It remains to be seen how the forward alignments will shake out in camp but Granato likes the fact that Cozens and Casey Mittelstadt can go in either spot.
"Why are they one or the other? That's just the way we think," Granato said. "Why would we convince ourselves that they're one or the other? We don't want to limit that. That's limiting. Both have attributes, that if you shift them to either position within a game they're dangerous in different ways at center, and they're dangerous in different ways on the wing. It's impressive. And they're growing both. So that's pretty exciting."
Mittelstadt was taken in the first round in 2017 and is pushing a make-or-break kind of season after dealing with injuries most of last year. Cozens, meanwhile, is pushing into the club's young leadership group and firmly establishing himself as a top-6 player in the core.
And that means off the ice too. It was noticed around the organization how he journeyed to Rochester to watch the Amerks in a playoff game and how he came back to town in July for development camp to greet No. 1 pick Matt Savoie, who was not skating due to a shoulder injury.
"I think there's a lot of guys that have stepped up," Cozens said. "We have a great leadership group to kind of follow in that way. Makes it easy for us to just follow in their path and see what they do."
Cozens spent a lot of time Saturday playing with JJ Peterka, Filip Cederqvist and Aleksandr Kisakov. It was easy to joke with him that he's already an old man at 21.
"Weird now having guys here that are a few years younger than me. I feel like I just got started here," Cozens said. "And I'm already going into my third season. So it is kind of weird being seen as a vet. But that's just how it is."
Peterka and Jack Quinn will be here to help boost the offense. Savoie and players like Isak Rosen will be on the cusp, either in juniors or Rochester. Cozens wants to start cracking the barrier of 20-30 goals as this team continues its push forward in the Atlantic Division.
"It's just sort of sticking to it and not pressing for goals," Cozens said. "If it goes in, it goes in. Trusting yourself and your skills and your abilities. And that's something you kind of learn as you play more games."
