Early Trading: Flames remain interested in Cozens despite trade

Gino Reda is joined by TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun to discuss Ryan Hartman’s 10-game suspension, the Calgary Flames’ interest in Dylan Cozens, and the Vancouver Canucks’ future plans on Early Trading.

Gino Reda: Minnesota Wild forward Ryan Hartman got 10 games for splitting open Ottawa Senators forward Tim Stutzle’s face when he drove him in to the ice.

It’s the longest suspension in the league in seven years. Why did the league come down so hard on Hartman?

Pierre LeBrun: The easiest part to answer that is the fact that he’s a repeat offender.

He’s had suspensions and fines in the past, so that part is very understandable, and you could see that coming.

But there’s an underlying current to this decision too. I go back to one of George Parros’ first interviews when he took over NHL Player Safety back in September of 2017. That’s seven and a half years the big guy has been in charge of player safety.

I remember sitting with him when he was doing the media rounds at one of the NHL player tours. One of the things he said that always stuck with me was that one of the areas he wanted to come down hard on was so-called non-hockey infractions. Those are things that have nothing to do with the game. Plays that are so far outside the game and are dangerous. You could see that.

You can disagree all you want about Parros’ decisions over player safety over the last seven and a half years. I don’t know if it’s always been consistent. But in this particular area, the non-hockey play, Parros has always wanted to come down hard and did he ever with Hartman.

That was a non-hockey play. It was ridiculous, it was dangerous, and Hartman is lucky that Stutzle wasn’t seriously injured. That was a really scary play.

It also comes after Hartman has had other non-hockey infractions on top of it all. He’s not just a repeat offender, but a repeat offender in that context that really bugs Parros.

Reda: It’s just over a month to go until the trade deadline and when Calgary Flames general manager Craig Conroy made his deal with the Philadelphia Flyers last week, he said he wanted to give his players something because they deserve it for the way they’ve been playing.

They’re hanging onto the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference, what’s his plan now?

LeBrun: Let’s start with the general game plan, which is despite being legitimately in a playoff race. They’re not going to let the short-term goals effect the longer-term vision.

Calgary won’t go out and spend big assets on rental players or a pending unrestricted free agent. That doesn’t make sense for the Flames.

If they do something else that’s impactful, it’s once again going to be a hockey trade like we saw last week.

With that in mind, there’s a name that the Flames remain interested in, despite the acquisition last week of Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee, and that is Dylan Cozens of the Buffalo Sabres.

The Flames have been enamoured with him all year long. I don’t know if they have the pieces to make the deal work with the Sabres for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t think Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams is actually shopping Cozens. He’s taking calls because Buffalo is in last place, and he has to take calls. But if he moves Cozens after signing him to a long-term deal, I think it would have to be apples for apples and not just a futures deal. Buffalo would need players coming their way to help this team too.

Two thirds of the league have checked in with Buffalo on Cozens. He’s obviously a name that has garnered a lot of attention. But he’s a name that fits into what Calgary is planning long-term. He’s a right-shot, young centre who’s 23 years old. But whether or not they can actually get this conversation to go another level remains to be seen. He would be a name that remains on Calgary’s radar.

Reda: For the first time in a long time, I’m not going to ask you what the Vancouver Canucks are going to do with J.T. Miller because that’s finally done. So, let me ask this, what are the Canucks’ plans to fill the void of Millers departure?

LeBrun: That’s the next question. They need to replace him and that’s easier said than done. It’s not something that the Canucks can absolutely guarantee that they can do before March 7’s trade deadline.

Going out and trying to find a top-six centre is the priority for the organization between now and puck-drop next fall. It’s hard to go find those guys but that is a big priority for the organization. They’re going to continue to make calls around the league to see what’s out there.

We just spoke about Cozens. The Canucks have made calls about him too. A lot of that, we believe, were part of the Elias Pettersson talks. We think Vancouver has taken Pettersson off the market for now because they want to see how he responds after Miller was traded.

Nevertheless, that would be the type of player that would help Vancouver.

We’ll see where this goes but the Canucks have cap flexibility now and would like to go out and acquire a centre. We’ll see when they’ll be able to get that done.

Reda: Those are some stories Pierre is working on right now. Pierre, Chris Johnston, and Darren Dreger will be back with a full version of Insider Trading on the early edition of SportsCentre.