Detroit Red Wings

Red Wings Prospect Cossa Wins AHL Debut With Griffins

Making 21 saves, Sebastian Cossa beat Milwaukee 3-2

Published

1 year ago

October 20, 2022

Bob Duff

Red Wings prospect Sebastian Cossa was a winner in his AHL debut. Photo by Nicolas Carrillo/Griffins

Chalk up his first pro victory for Detroit Red Wings goalie of the future Sebastian Cossa. In his American Hockey League debut, Cossa (15th overall 2021) won a battle of first-round picks against Nashville Predators prospect Yaroslav Askarov (11th overall, 2020).

Making 21 saves, Cossa was backstopping the Griffins to a 3-2 home-ice victory over the Milwaukee Admirals on Wednesday at Van Andel Arena.

“If felt great,” Cossa said. “I was a little nervous going into the first one tonight.”

Two first-round draft picks will make their pro goaltending debut tonight inside @VanAndelArena. @DetroitRedWings @SebastianCossa (15th overall in 2021) starts for @griffinshockey vs @PredsNHL Jaroslav Askarov (11th overall in 2020) for @mkeadmirals pic.twitter.com/ipyt9btisM

— Bob Kaser (@bkaser1) October 19, 2022

Friday, Cossa was stopping 29 shots as he led the Toledo Walleye to a 6-2 victory over Kalamazoo in an ECHL preseason game. He was recalled to Grand Rapids the next day.

Griffins coach Ben Simon indicated that the plan was to give each of the three goalies with Grand Rapids – Cossa, Jussi Olkinuora and Victor Brattstrom – each a start during the first three games of the AHL season.

Cossa, 19, is doing his best to focus on stopping the puck and not on when and where he’ll be doing that puckstopping.

“I think I’ve taken it in stride,” Cossa said. “There’s a lot of good vets and coaches around helping me in my process. Also quite a bit of guys who are doing this for the first time. We’re all kind of bouncing heads off each other, trying to make it as easy as possible.

“Personally for me, it’s taking it day by day for now and just continuing to develop and working as hard as I can. I think I’ve made the jump pretty smoothly so far. I’ll just continue to do that.”

Cossa Working On Technique

There are only two nets on the ice, so three goalies is never a formula that works in the long term. Logically, one of these three netminders will eventually be getting an assignment to Toledo.

“Obviously it’s three good goalies,” Cossa said. “Those decisions don’t lie up to me. The other two goalies are exceptional goalies. At the end of the day, the management is gonna make that decision. All three of us are just going out there and trying to get better as a group and trying to help this team win.”

In the meantime, Cossa is maintaining his pursuit of becoming a better goaltender

“I think obviously the #1 thing is the work ethic,” he said. “No matter if I’m playing lights out or if I have a tough one, I think the most important thing is coming to the rink the next day and working as hard as I can.

“Obviously there’s a lot of things going on with the goalie coaches right now technique wise. Just keeping my feet underneath me, keeping good angles to the shooters, releasing off the shot, stuff like that.

“I think the biggest thing for me right now is the work ethic. They have the coaches here that are going to help me develop. I just gotta put the work.”

Friday, Cossa was reassigned from the Griffins to the ECHL Walleye along with defenseman Seth Barton and forward Trenton Bliss.