Well, of the first two, one was bought out of the league he's so bad, and the second has been just as terrible with Colorado as he was with Ottawa, so bad that he worked his way out of their already terrible top 4 and onto the bottom pair by mid season. They were both very clearly not top 4 material, so yeah, they would have been at the very least a significant part of the problem. Anyone with eyes could see that though.
Wrt to Phaneuf, I don't think he's hard to play with myself, I just feel he's miscast as a shutdown pairing dman at this point in his career, he's struggled in that role back with Toronto as well before having his responsibilities in that regard cut back for his last year there.
But if he isn't a shutdown defenceman now at this age what is he? He skates way too slowly to be a PMD & I guess you could call him a two way defencemen since he is able to do things at either end, it's just getting there that takes him a long time. He's a big guy, tough & can still clear out the front of the net so he can play the role of a shutdown D. Miscast maybe but what else can he do exactly?
Rewatch the majority of the shifts he played in Period 3 of Game 6, then ask yourself again if Ceci is fine...
Who else in this organization can play the same role for Ottawa & this coach? Did anything that Ceci do cause the team to lose the game or lose the round? NO, they still won the round & that is all that matters. No hockey player is perfect, Ceci makes mistakes just like all the rest of them, the only ones who don't make mistakes during games are the people watching. I've seen many times Ceci fighting two guy behind the net while Phaneuf stands at the side of the net watching & nobody coming to help him out because they play a zone defensive system & rarely anyone scores from behind the net. If Ceci was costing us games that would be a problem but since they are winning, it shouldn't be a problem until it is. They are in the conference finals when NOBODY predicted it & people are still complaining about players. Karlsson makes plenty of mistakes too, but because he is so dynamic offensively everybody forgives him instantly, no one wants to be heard criticizing the boy wonder.
Ceci had a bad third. That much is certain. But it was his first truuuuuuuly atrocious whole period since like game 3 against Boston.
And regulation time of game 2 vs. the rangers
Are you actually defending Ceci here? He has his challenges but his coach has also put him in those positions & should take some of the blame, should he not? GB obviously doesn't trust anyone else to play the same role or he would have them in there playing instead of Ceci would he not? Who else who can play the same role? The majority on here also hate Boro but GB has said that Boro would 100% be in there if he was healthy enough to play. Rather than crap on Ceci or Boro start complaining about the guy who puts them into those positions, the same guy who has led them to the Conference Final in his first yr as coach. How can we praise the coach for getting them into the Conference finals & how great he is & then turn around & crap on the players who actually play the game to get the team there in the first place when they all play a role in the team's success.
Bianco is pretty much right, Ceci is deployed as our #1, #2, or #3 pretty much every game. The majority of the time, he is deployed as our #2.
And agreed, he is in over his head. So is Phaneuf. So would be Methot if he added 3 minutes every game, as would be Wideman if he added 12 minutes every game.
And yet they are in the Conference finals, one of only four teams left in this yr's playoffs so they must be doing something right, don't you think? You do the best you can with the players you have, people can ***** & complain about players all they want & who they should get but what can be done at this time of yr? At the end of the day, you have to do what you can with what you have right now & IMO GB has done a pretty good job getting his players to execute his system & play as well as they have so far in these playoffs & making it to the Conference finals.
I like Ceci's physical game and his puck battles. He seems to have put on weight from his rookie year and doesn't get pushed around too much. He seemed to have lost some of his speed and his puck handling also seems a little worse but for his age I think he still has room to improve and really define his game as he gets to 25.
This is a good point, it used to be said that it took defencemen until they were 26 or 27 yrs old before they learned to play the game properly. A number of defencemen are finding success in the NHL at a younger age but most people define success today as accumulating a lot of pts. Some people appreciate what a player like Methot can do on the backend without acquiring a lot of points but they also consider him expendable for someone who can put up more pts. I would be interested to see what a team with 6 PMD & weak defensively would look like & how successful they would be. This team has made it to the Conference finals with the players they have so IMO they must be doing something right.
