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Something we’ve said for a couple of years now is that if Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams wants to make a blockbuster trade, he has all the young players, picks and prospects required to make it happen.
The two most notable names mentioned in a potential package for Pettersson were Dylan Cozens and Bo Byram when Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman suggested a potential trade package between the two teams on his 32 Thoughts podcast.
Cozens has had a tough year, but he scored 31 goals two years ago. He’s a fiery competitor and still only 23 years old. Guys like that aren’t easy to get unless a team drafts them.
Byram has been outstanding in a mix of pairings with Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power, and he is due to become a restricted free agent this summer. The Sabres already have Dahlin and Power locked up for a lot of money and years, and Mattias Samuelsson is also signed long-term for a little over $4 million per season.
Swapping Pettersson and Cozens would be a seismic shift and the former would have a good friend in Dahlin to lean on. Cozens would get to return to where he grew up playing hockey when he left home in Yukon as a junior player.
Losing Byram would be difficult since they acquired him from Colorado for Casey Mittelstadt a year ago. And despite having a lot of depth on the blue line, the other defensemen behind Dahlin, Power and occasionally Samuelsson haven’t earned a ton of trust from coach Lindy Ruff.
Whether it’s one or both of those names or any of the other young, talented Sabres players teams covet (Jack Quinn, Jiri Kulich, Zach Benson to name a few) to build a package for Pettersson and more, it would be a huge deal to pull off.
It’s easy to put together on paper, but the stakes are so high on both sides that if it doesn’t work out, it’ll haunt them for years.