Dylan Cozens' Disappointing 2023-24 Season

The Sabres' second-line center mainstay has had a down year, but what's really the issue? Let's take a look using his microstats.

Last season, Buffalo Sabres’ budding star Dylan Cozens finally broke out, potting 31 goals and 68 points in 81 games. The former seventh-overall pick looked every bit as worthy of the seven-year, $7.1 million AAV contract that ensued.

Flash forward to 2023-24, and the results simply aren’t matching his production from last year. He’s sitting on 10 goals and 29 points in 48 games, pacing for just 16 goals and 49 points, both well short of his totals from just one season ago. Not only that, but most of his underlying statistics are also worse than they were in 2022-23.

When he’s on the ice, the Sabres are producing 11.7 high-danger chances per 60 minutes (HDCF/60), as opposed to 12.8 last season. High-danger goals per 60 this season are down from 1.52 to 0.92. He’s more than doubled his giveaways per 60 (1.54 to 0.76) and his takeaways have been nearly halved (0.92 to 1.42). The only area of his game that has improved is on defense — he’s lowered his expected goals against per 60 from 3.04 to 2.76.

So, why the worsened offense? Using tracked data and microstats, we begin to see a better picture of what’s going on. Let’s take a look at what Cozens did well last season: