After jolting the fan base with its pick of Simon Edvinsson over fanbase hopeful William Eklund, the Detroit Red Wings made some more noise and traded up to the 15th overall pick with Dallas. Detroit dealt its 23rd overall pick, 48th overall pick (2nd rounder), and its 138th (5th rounder).
And Yzerman didn’t disappoint as he took goalie Sebastian Cossa with the 15th overall pick.
What the Red Wings Get with Cossa
Alex once again had a write up on Cossa, who absolutely fits the Yzerman profile of netminders:
Cossa has played in the WHL the last two seasons. He started in the crease for one of the league’s best teams, the Edmonton Oil Kings. With the Oil Kings, Cossa played some elite hockey; in his first year with the team, Cossa secured a save percentage of .921 through 33 games. Although the sample size was smaller (The WHL had a shortened season due to Covid), Cossa managed to improve in the 2021 season to a league-leading .941 save percentage.
There are a few minor concerns about the impressive stats Cossa put up in his time with the Oil Kings. Compared to what scouts typically get to look at, 52 games through two years is relatively limited. It also doesn’t help that he played with one of the best teams in the league, possessing an elite defensive unit. But the numbers are too good to write off because of limited play.
Cossa is a giant in the crease. Standing at 6-foot-6, he towers over the entrance of the net, daring shooters to find a gap. The problem for opposing teams? His positioning makes it nearly impossible to find any hole in the net. Cossa is fantastic at angling to cut off shooters and positioning to take away any high danger scoring chances.
That he took Cossa over Wallstedt is interesting, but with Red Wings scout Håkan Andersson being responsible for much of the Red Wings past success, you have to figure he did his due diligence before making the pick.
But the Red Wings now planted a major prospect into its goalie pipeline. The question that most Wings fans will now have are whether or not it’s the one they wanted. Wallstedt and Cossa were considered the two best goalie prospects in the draft, but it really depends on the analyst who they favored more in terms of ranking.
Semi-retired TSN analyst Bob McKenzie tweeted this before the pick (and he was on fire throughout the evening with this analysis):
Honestly, and it’s been spoken to before, we really won’t know anything until a few years down the road. Yes, it’s risky to take a netminder that early, and there will be cognitive dissonance with the Wallstedt comparison being there.
But Yzerman took a goalie in the middle of the first round before and boy, did it work out well.
Like everything else, we’ll have to wait and see if it does again.