Sebastian Cossa’s season ends in Toledo, but strong second half brings hope for Red Wings

TOLEDO, Ohio — On the eve of what may have been his final game in the ECHL, Sebastian Cossa stood just outside the Walleye locker room with a calm clarity about the stakes he was getting ready to face.

“I live for these games,” the Red Wings’ towering top goalie prospect said plainly. “When the pressure’s up, I come out and I play my game.”

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He had been knocked out of the postseason before, in last year’s Memorial Cup, but even on that night, he was the game’s third star. And while he had never stared down elimination in a seven-game series — winning the WHL last season via series of four, four, five and six games, respectively, and with Toledo sweeping both his first two series as a pro — Cossa still had weeks of recent evidence to back up his words.

Through his first six playoff games, Detroit’s 2021 first-round pick had been dominant — carrying a 5-1 record and a sterling .936 save percentage. That was even better than what he had done as a junior player, turning in a .919 mark for the Edmonton Oil Kings last postseason.

And if the Walleye were going to keep their 2022-23 season alive, it was going to take every bit of that, and maybe more. Toledo coach Dan Watson called the opposing Idaho Steelheads “probably the best team I’ve seen in this league,” and accordingly, they had the Walleye down 3-1 in the series entering Saturday night.

The stage, frankly, couldn’t have been set more dramatically.

But then the moment came, and it got away. Cossa made it to the game’s midpoint before being pulled after giving up four goals on nine shots — not the way anyone would have envisioned his likely finale for Toledo.

Taking inventory of the goals, only one of the four (the second, a one-timer that got through Cossa) really looked like it should have been stopped. The first was a loose puck on the back door that Cossa seemed to lose through heavy traffic. The third was a breakaway on which he actually made an excellent save … only to then tap it in with his skate on the follow through. The fourth was a perfectly placed shot. Those things happen.

And on Saturday, they all happened, one after another, under the bright lights — leaving a bitter last taste of what had been a strong second half for Detroit’s most important goalie prospect in at least a decade.

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“I hate to see what happened to him here tonight, having to get him out of the game,” Watson said. “But if you look at his overall development this year, how he’s matured, I think he’s right on target here.”

“We let him down tonight,” added veteran T.J. Hensick. “You can’t blame anything on him — he was phenomenal for us all playoffs, all year. His future’s bright and I wish him nothing but the best.”

Hensick wasn’t with the team the entire season, but noted that since he rejoined the Walleye in early March, he and Cossa had been going out to practice 15-20 minutes early each day. That’s a small glimpse into the effort Cossa put in to recover from some early-season struggles and find his form as a pro. Hensick echoed Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman in calling Cossa “a worker,” which is perhaps the most important descriptor to hear about a goaltender with Cossa’s natural athleticism and physical gifts.

At 6-foot-6, Cossa’s lower back touches the crossbar when he hinges at the waist. His lengthy limbs can take away considerable space in the butterfly. Those elements can’t be taught.

But the early parts of his season showed the work to be done. And to Cossa’s credit, he was willing to do it. He was the league’s Goaltender of the Month in March before a stellar playoff run in April and May. Cossa is quick to credit the team in front of him — which at one point won a staggering 18 straight games — but he acknowledged a growth in confidence as he’s gotten acclimated to the league as well.

“I think just mentally, physically, he’s done a really good job,” Watson said. “I think he’s grown up right before our eyes pretty quick. It started with off-the-ice stuff, just having a good routine, getting into good habits away from the rink, learning to be a pro. I think that was a big part, and obviously we’ve seen his growth from the start of the year to the end of the year: more confident, and I think he’s turned into a real good pro here this year.”

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Fellow Red Wings prospect Donovan Sebrango — who split the year between Toledo and AHL Grand Rapids — has seen Cossa’s upward trajectory up close at several points over the past two years, between prospect camps, the world juniors with Team Canada, and now in Toledo.

“He just keeps getting better and better,” Sebrango said. “And I mean, the sky’s the limit for him right now.”

In all likelihood, the next step for Cossa will be to move up a level to Grand Rapids, where the challenges will begin anew. It’s also worth noting that it’s possible Watson could move up with him as coach, though as of now the Griffins’ head coaching vacancy remains unfilled. Current Red Wings assistant coach Alex Tanguay is another name I’ve started to hear for that opening, and although Tanguay does not yet have head coach experience, he has been reported as a candidate for the Calgary Flames job. (Another name I wonder about is U.S. NTDP coach Dan Muse, who just helped Team USA bring World U18 gold back to their metro-Detroit home base, but as usual the Red Wings are proceeding quietly with their search.)

Watson, though, certainly has believers in Toledo who would like to see him get a shot at the next level somewhere, including Hensick most vocally.

“I hope someone gives him a chance, because he’s deserving of it,” Hensick said. “He’s just a good guy, he’s a rare coach in that he cares about you as a person before a player, and that’s what you want in a coach at this level, at the professional level, especially in this day and age. He’s very good with personalities, which is, to me, a big thing in coaching at this level. You have to be able to relate to these guys, and he does that. … If someone’s out there that wants a player’s point of view on him, I’m here, I’ll accept the phone call.”

“I love him,” Sebrango said of Watson after the Walleye lost in Game 4 Friday. “I’d go to war for him. We’re going to war for him every night.”

In Toledo, that push ended Saturday night, with a loss to a better team, and a finale for Cossa that obscured an otherwise excellent stretch of play.

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Now, all eyes turn to the future, where Cossa seems set to take his next step, and the Red Wings will have to be smart in surrounding him with a much better team than the Griffins had in place last season. That may include an AHL veteran to pair with Cossa in goal, though certainly, Cossa will need as many reps as possible.

He is one of the Red Wings’ most important prospects, at a position where their pipeline is otherwise remarkably thin. Simply put, they need him to succeed — and that’s an awful lot of pressure on a 20-year-old.

Cossa, though, doesn’t seem to mind pressure — even if he’ll be hoping for a better outcome than he got under the bright lights on Saturday.

(Photo of Sebastian Cossa: Jamie Sabau / USA Today)