Dylan Cozens knew his hockey season wasn't destined to end at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes. Unsatisfied with how the Ottawa Senators' season ended, the 25-year-old forward jetted over to Switzerland in mid-May. He had no idea he'd end up on a line with one of the all-time greats.
In the aftermath of the Ottawa Senators' unceremonious first-round exit from the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the 25-year-old centre needed no encouragement from Sens brass or convincing from Hockey Canada to head overseas and play for a gold medal at the World Hockey Championship.
“I mean, I think a lot of us would have agreed that we weren't ready to stop playing, and that's where I was at,” Cozens told the Ottawa Citizen in a phone interview on Tuesday. “I wasn't ready. I felt good about where my game was at and I wasn't quite ready for it to be the off-season.”
Coming off a strong regular season with 59 points (28 goals, 31 assists) in 82 games, it was a no-brainer to keep his momentum going alongside some of the best players in the world.
“I just felt like my body felt good, everything felt good and I wanted to keep playing,” Cozens said. “I haven't won a world championship yet either, and we were a really good team.”
Team Canada was dynamite on paper when Cozens committed — Macklin Celebrini, Mark Scheifele and Mathew Barzal amongst the notables in an impressive forward corps — but it was about to get even better. Mere hours before the team was scheduled to meet up in Switzerland, Sidney Crosby decided he still had plenty left in the tank after his Pittsburgh Penguins were eliminated from the NHL playoffs.
“It was pretty exciting once we found out he was coming,” Cozens said. “To get the opportunity to play on a team with him and get to learn from him, we were all pretty fired up.”
What would happen next verged on surreal for the Whitehorse, Yukon, native. A 5-3 win over Sweden in the tournament opener wasn't exactly cause for concern, but coach Misha Donskov didn't like seeing his top trio of Celebrini, Crosby and Scheifele go pointless. So, he immediately shuffled his lines.
“I just came in one morning and coach ‘Mish’ told me that I was going to be on the wing with (Crosby and Celebrini),” Cozens recalled. “Having the opportunity to play with both those guys and be on their line was pretty awesome, and definitely something I didn't take for granted.”
Cozens, playing on the wing consistently for the first time since his rookie season with the Buffalo Sabres in 2020-21, had seven points (four goals, three assists) in 10 games, and linked up with Crosby to score one of the best goals of the tournament. In round-robin play against Slovakia, Crosby hit Cozens with a 100-foot flip from the goal line and the Sens forward ripped a wrister short side on a partial break.
“I mean, scoring a goal that was assisted by him was pretty special,” Cozens said. “I'll always remember that goal for sure. It was nice play, a really nice play by him, and he put it right in the perfect spot for me to skate onto and use my speed. It was a good one.”
Does that warrant an automatic invitation to Sid's famed Halifax summer skates with the likes of Nathan MacKinnon, Brad Marchand and Senators teammate Drake Batherson?
“Who knows? Maybe,” Cozens said with a laugh. “Yeah, I definitely want to get out with that group at some point and practice with them. Obviously, they've got an unreal group and they have a really good skate, so I hope to make it down there at some point in the near future.”
A fourth-place tournament finish is far from satisfactory for the greatest hockey nation in the world, but the experience will undoubtedly aid Cozens in the long run, molding him into an even more complete player. The 2025-26 season was another considerable step in his evolution, quality offensive numbers combined with a team-leading 215 hits, nearly as many as he had in his first four years with the Sabres.
