Player Discussion Cody Ceci | Part III

[JD1]

I think Ceci is perhaps not what was expected when he was younger (lots of offensive upside), but to me he's improved in small but important ways since last year this time. It used to be that he would hold on to the puck for a bit too long when he retrieved it (which I think he's always been pretty good at), get caught by a forecheck and end up turning over the puck, or choose the wrong path for a pass and give it away. I'd cringe when he'd have the puck and you could see the wheels turning in his head - what do I do with this thing now?? The best option for him was always to just skate it out, but that is not always great for the transition.

Anyway, in my mind he's made huge improvements in this area since last season. He's a lot more confident when he gets the puck on his stick, makes a decent decision more often than not with passing to get it out of our zone. He's always had size, speed, and was fairly good with his stick and along the boards as strengths, so it's encouraging that he is making improvements in vision and decision making in his own end. He'll never be a superstar and he'll never be without flaws in those areas, but I think he's a really valuable player to have on the blueline. Not to be ****ty, but I often think the issues are often more about fan expectations of players than their actual performances. He lines up pretty well with other 2nd pairing RHD on great teams across the league IMO.

generally I'd say that ones ability to see a play doesn't change much from year to year. Apparently Ceci went through multiple broken hands / digits last year which was something we didn't hear about until the year was over. His confidence with the puck may well stem from knowing he can snap his wrists and do what he wants. Having hand injuries sucks, you can know what you want to do but if it takes an extra split second to determine if you can do it because your hand aches...well that's often the difference between a good play and a bad play.

 

[Burrowsaurus]

At least it gives you an indication of who to avoid, when I see people loudly proclaiming how poor Ceci is, I avoid those people or conversations as nothing positive or generally factual will come from it. Best to just move on imo, the guy has improved every year and looks to be taking another step this year.

Lmao wow. I'm sad you feel that way. Staying away from people the think differently than you. Unfortunately there's people like that everywhere.

"You have proclaimed that ceci is poor nothing good can come from you".

I have no issue with people liking ceci and providing evidence other than "Boucher likes him and I like him too I have similar opinions to pros"

But there's actually a group here that think that anyone that doesn't like ceci knows nothing. Like without liking ceci, you have no hockey knowledge.

Suffering from neck strain with their noses so high up in the air.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

 

[Xspyrit]

Ceci leads the Sens in even strength TOI, and matches up against the other team's top line every game.

If he was able to do that while putting up 40 points and never getting hemmed in his own zone (like some posters seem to expect), he would be a Norris-level defenseman. As he is right now, Ceci is already a #2 or #3 NHL defenseman.

Ceci doesn't only lead Sens in even strength TOI, he is 23rd in EV TOI/GP in the whole league since last season (D-men with more than 17 games to avoid the small sample size). The guy gets top pairing minutes against the hardest competition and mostly DZ + NZ deployments. Of course he is going to get "hemmed in" on many shifts, particularly when guys like Pageau and Pyatt are on the ice in those situations too.

NHL.com - Stats

Pretty much all the guys ahead (and some behind) on that list are considered top-pairing D-men...

He is also 13th in SH TOI/GP since 2016-17, so if you combine both EV and SH TOI/GP, he is probably top-20, maybe even top-10 in the league... Let that sink in... He just doesn't get much PP time so he doesn't put numbers. Most shutdown D-men have bad corsi, it goes without saying. One day I think they will be able to provide smarter advanced stats, but we're not there yet.

Why would a coach as bright as Guy Boucher and Marc Crawford do that and put their team success in jeopardy? Their team has had quite the success since they have starting doing that. Ceci is a horse and I agree with their comments.

So I concur, it's hard to put a lot of credibility in people who say that Ceci is poor or horrible or this or that... Sounds like a very amateurish opinion.

 

[Upgrayedd]

Lmao wow. I'm sad you feel that way. Staying away from people the think differently than you. Unfortunately there's people like that everywhere.

"You have proclaimed that ceci is poor nothing good can come from you".

I have no issue with people liking ceci and providing evidence other than "Boucher likes him and I like him too I have similar opinions to pros"

But there's actually a group here that think that anyone that doesn't like ceci knows nothing. Like without liking ceci, you have no hockey knowledge.

Suffering from neck strain with their noses so high up in the air.

There is some confusion here, staying away from someone who doesn't share the same opinion is one thing and I agree a poor choice, staying away from someone who is simply incorrect in their beliefs has served me very well and something I believe to be a good choice....and yes I consider any fan that thinks current top 4 NHL defender of the Ottawa Senators Cody Ceci "sucks" or "shouldn't be in the NHL" is simply wrong....because it cannot be debated that he plays top 4 minutes currently in the National Hockey League which is roundly viewed as the best hockey league in the world.

 

[Viletho]

Anyway, in my mind he's made huge improvements in this area since last season. He's a lot more confident when he gets the puck on his stick, makes a decent decision more often than not with passing to get it out of our zone. He's always had size, speed, and was fairly good with his stick and along the boards as strengths, so it's encouraging that he is making improvements in vision and decision making in his own end. He'll never be a superstar and he'll never be without flaws in those areas, but I think he's a really valuable player to have on the blueline. Not to be ****ty, but I often think the issues are often more about fan expectations of players than their actual performances. He lines up pretty well with other 2nd pairing RHD on great teams across the league IMO.

First i think you are right about that but i aslo saw that the forward and Dman are playing a lot closer than last year on the transition. The first pass that the D have to make are closer than last year which of course help a lot at doing good.

Last year, i felt the forward where often very bad at handling the puck on the breakout which result in a lot of possible breakout being break by the opponent. This year, the low forward is very near the D, so the passing is faster and pass easier. Which is a good thing.

 

[BonkTastic]

How about upgrading a bunch of HFSens users instead?

I looked into the BonkTastic 2.0 upgrade, and in the developers notes the only features that changed from the base model were
- 200% more gifs
- 20% longer posts
- an added "sass" filter

In the end , I didn't think it was worth it. I'll just keep the current BonkTastic version 1.3 for now, and wait and see what BonkTastic 3 looks like in beta.

 

[Micklebot]

I looked into the BonkTastic 2.0 upgrade, and in the developers notes the only features that changed from the base model were
- 200% more gifs
- 20% longer posts
- an added "sass" filter

In the end , I didn't think it was worth it. I'll just keep the current BonkTastic version 1.3 for now, and wait and see what BonkTastic 3 looks like in beta.

3rd party open source firmware upgrades are the way to go in this day and age. More agile to the changing world around them and highly customizable; the Micklebot - Merlin build is a thing of beauty.

 

[Uchiha]

Ceci is continuing his atrocious play. At least now people are starting to finally accept that he's a bad player.

 

[King Karlsson]

Ceci is continuing his atrocious play. At least now people are starting to finally accept that he's a bad player.

It only took 307 NHL games, but yes, finally people are starting to realize how bad he is. Unfortunately I am still quite confident that Sens MGMT will be signing him to at least a 3 year extension

 

[Karl Prime]

It's so frustrating watching Ceci play with the puck. Without it's he's generally pretty good but whenever it's on his stick he either takes too long to make a decision or panics and fires it straight to the goalie, even if there is no traffic.

I didn't watch Ceci in junior but did a lot of his offense come off the rush? Because he's pretty bad anytime he gets the puck at the offensive blue line.

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

He's horrible. They need to trade him.

Don't know what kind of a defenceman he is. Mediocre defensively, impotent offensively. Just all around mediocre.

 

[BankStreetParade]

Really really tough game for him tonight. His head isn't in it. But I suspect the schedule has a lot to do with that. These guys just aren't getting the reps and game time they need. Too many breaks and layoffs. Too much inconsistency in the spacing of their games. They play 3 games in 4 nights one week and then play 3 games in 2 weeks after that.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Are the advanced stats telling the truth now?

He's been offensively neutered now too.

 

[WadeRedden]

Ceci leads the Sens in even strength TOI, and matches up against the other team's top line every game.

If he was able to do that while putting up 40 points and never getting hemmed in his own zone (like some posters seem to expect), he would be a Norris-level defenseman. As he is right now, Ceci is already a #2 or #3 NHL defenseman.

Man, the Ceci apologists around here are going to have to come up with a better defence than "He plays a lot of minutes against good competition." What's your point? Phaneuf and Ceci are inexplicably deployed against the opposition's top lines and are routinely destroyed. We're supposed to be impressed because he plays a lot, while totally ignoring how ineffective he is while on the ice?

 

[DrEasy]

That's it, I'm done waiting for Ceci to finally grow into a well-rounded top 4 D. There was so much promise during his first year, where he showed some poise, the ability to take a hit and not lose the puck, and a decent shot. But he's following the Phillips career trajectory, except at such an accelerated pace he's already playing like the pre-retired version of him. No puck-handling ability, bad decision-making, can't take a pass, can't shoot, can't smother the opponent, can't clear the zone calmly.

Maybe some of it is due to the pairing. Despite everything I just said, I could see pairing him with Chabot, and telling him to just sit back, take the body and ignore the puck, Phillips-style. Chabot can then worry about the puck handling, getting the puck out of the zone, creating some offense, etc.

Claesson - Karlsson <- still the only pairing that seems to work for Karlsson this year
Chabot - Ceci <- no left wing lock here
Pha9 - Harpur <- similar minutes as the above line, all about match-ups

 

[Uchiha]

 

[BurgoShark]

I thought he was good tonight when he was away from Phaneuf.

 

[Icelevel]

Hurry up Jaros

 

[Korpse]

It's so frustrating watching Ceci play with the puck. Without it's he's generally pretty good but whenever it's on his stick he either takes too long to make a decision or panics and fires it straight to the goalie, even if there is no traffic.

I didn't watch Ceci in junior but did a lot of his offense come off the rush? Because he's pretty bad anytime he gets the puck at the offensive blue line.

He reminds me of Chris Phillips in so many ways, he still has a ways to go before he gets to that level, but he is on track to approach it. I really think it would be benefical if he played along side a puck mover, he has never really had that at any point in his career. Sometime, hopefully in the near future, I could see Chabot and Ceci doing wonders for each others game. Of course it could totally bomb but I'm hopeful that Chabot can bring a calmness to Ceci's game the way Kalrsson does for Claesson.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

It scares me because I can easily see him getting a huge raise based on management's irrational hard-on for him.

 

[Viletho]

He reminds me of Chris Phillips in so many ways, he still has a ways to go before he gets to that level, but he is on track to approach it. I really think it would be benefical if he played along side a puck mover, he has never really had that at any point in his career. Sometime, hopefully in the near future, I could see Chabot and Ceci doing wonders for each others game. Of course it could totally bomb but I'm hopeful that Chabot can bring a calmness to Ceci's game the way Kalrsson does for Claesson.

He had Wierchoch at some point and they were very good during the streak.. But then it fall off the next year.

And yes, i agree that Chabot-Ceci should be a thing and let Chabot do his thing while Ceci stay back. Just like Methot was for Karlsson.

 

[ottawah]

Are the advanced stats telling the truth now?

He's been offensively neutered now too.

Then people must hate Claesson because his offensive is far worse and advanced stats worse, despite getting better opportunity minutes for those categories .....

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

Then people must hate Claesson because his offensive is far worse and advanced stats worse, despite getting better opportunity minutes for those categories .....

Claesson hasn't been bad for 90% of his career

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

At this point, there seems to be so many people against Ceci (from listening to the radio last night, and checking so many twitter comments), that it might be better for the kid to move him. He could put in a Norris caliber season the rest of the way, and it won't do jack to squash the hate.

We have enough kids on the blueline now that one of them must be able to step up and take the spot.