Player Discussion Cody Ceci | Part IV

[JungleBeat]

He can’t pass or shoot. Absolutely useless in the O zone. Trade him by the deadline please.

 

[Tundraman]

Overpaid by half a mill

It's their own fault for overpaying on his last contract. It just shows you shouldn't pay for potential when a guy comes off his ELC. It can bite you in the next deal and beyond.

 

[JungleBeat]

Going to be a really rough season.

 

[Korpse]

Going to be a really rough season.

Moving the puck forward is my biggest issue with Ceci but it would be nice to know how he has compared in previous seasons but of course we arent privileged enough to have access to that information. We just get to know about it when theres a point Mike Kelly wants to make.

 

[Xspyrit]

This is a nothing play though, happens a lot in the NHL, players create turnovers with their body and/or equipment all the time...



Judging by this video, you could think that Karlsson was one of the worst D-man in the NHL, -6 that game. But everybody knows that Karlsson is a much better player than Ceci.

It's hard to rag too hard on the guy when we had the goaltending we did last year and he played a lot of the year with that pylon Phaneuf - a guy it should be reminded who was a cap dump last year.

I'd love to see Ceci play with a mobile, veteran defenseman for one year just to see how he actually plays in a better situation.

He looked much better paired with Chabot and if I am not mistaken, his advanced stats were also much better. That being said, he should be your #4 in TOI and not the 12th D-man with the most EV TOI in the whole league (can't people see that this is THE problem with Ceci? He is being asked to play as a top D-man in the league when he should be in the middle of the pack...)

On one side he makes/will make more money than he should because of it, but on the other side he gets crapped on a lot.

After Phaneuf was traded (last 28 games), Ceci had a 47.01 SAT%. Before the trade, he had a 42.99 SAT%

Unfortunately, he didn't play all the games with Chabot after Phaneuf was traded (Boucher and his decisions), but admittedly, who was going to play with Karlsson? Ceci played a lot with Wolanin, Harpur, Borowiecki and even Claesson too.

Micklebot, do you know how to find advanced stats with each player? I'd like to see that. I'm expecting Ceci to have much better advanced stats with Chabot and even Wolanin. Would like to see if the Zone Starts % changed too.

 

[BankStreetParade]

He looked much better paired with Chabot and if I am not mistaken, his advanced stats were also much better. That being said, he should be your #4 in TOI and not the 12th D-man with the most EV TOI in the whole league (can't people see that this is THE problem with Ceci? He is being asked to play as a top D-man in the league when he should be in the middle of the pack...)

On one side he makes/will make more money than he should because of it, but on the other side he gets crapped on a lot.

After Phaneuf was traded (last 28 games), Ceci had a 47.01 SAT%. Before the trade, he had a 42.99 SAT%

Unfortunately, he didn't play all the games with Chabot after Phaneuf was traded (Boucher and his decisions), but admittedly, who was going to play with Karlsson? Ceci played a lot with Wolanin, Harpur, Borowiecki and even Claesson too.

Micklebot, do you know how to find advanced stats with each player? I'd like to see that. I'm expecting Ceci to have much better advanced stats with Chabot and even Wolanin. Would like to see if the Zone Starts % changed too.

Absolutely. His utilization leaves a lot to be desired. BUT, who else do you play? The defense was pretty thin last year, lacked mobility, had too much inexperience and was playing in front of a goaltending duo who shat the bed on a nightly basis. It's a recipe for disaster if one has ever been cooked up.

Could he be better in more optimal conditions? I think the evidence suggests the answer is overwhelmingly yes. He's a victim of being on a team that's still building out their defense corps and will have some growing pains to match it.

 

[Tnuoc Alucard]

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

It's hard to rag too hard on the guy when we had the goaltending we did last year and he played a lot of the year with that pylon Phaneuf - a guy it should be reminded who was a cap dump last year.

I'd love to see Ceci play with a mobile, veteran defenseman for one year just to see how he actually plays in a better situation.

Agreed on all counts.

Ceci is decent player. He isn't a top pair guy, he's a middle pair guy so he's going to have warts in his game. And when he plays on a team, where the middle pair is the shutdown pair, he plays super tough minutes and didn't exactly have a great partner last year.

4.3 isn't unreasonable for him. This is a league where bottom pair vets get 3.5

 

[Xspyrit]

Absolutely. His utilization leaves a lot to be desired. BUT, who else do you play? The defense was pretty thin last year, lacked mobility, had too much inexperience and was playing in front of a goaltending duo who shat the bed on a nightly basis. It's a recipe for disaster if one has ever been cooked up.

Could he be better in more optimal conditions? I think the evidence suggests the answer is overwhelmingly yes. He's a victim of being on a team that's still building out their defense corps and will have some growing pains to match it.

And like you said in front of one of the worst goaltending duos in the league... Losing Methot really hurt and Phaneuf slowing down really hurt his efficiency. How to fix this? Signing a once very good but on his last legs D-man in Oduya and throwing young D-men Claesson and Harpur into the fire. Going cheap rarely works out.

Not only Ceci is being played in the wrong chair as the #2 shutdown D-man, but 12th in ice-time at Even Strength in the whole league? Of course he's not shining.

It's easy to see and the level of criticism towards him is unfair...

Corsi (EV) Fenwick (EV) PDO (EV) Zone Starts (EV)
Season Age Team Lg GP TOI CF CA CF% CF% rel FF FA FF% FF% rel oiGF oiSH% oiGA oiSV% PDO oZS% dZS%
2013-14 20 OTT NHL 49 684.2 699 676 50.8 -4.2 538 525 50.6 -3.1 31 8.0 37 90.7 98.7 52.3 47.7
2014-15 21 OTT NHL 81 1288.7 1188 1217 49.4 -1.3 876 912 49.0 0.2 47 7.4 54 92.2 99.6 49.9 50.1
2015-16 22 OTT NHL 75 1217.2 1003 1245 44.6 -4.7 746 928 44.6 -3.8 47 9.0 43 93.8 102.8 45.8 54.2
2016-17 23 OTT NHL 79 1516.2 1285 1568 45.0 -5.0 925 1123 45.2 -5.4 51 7.5 66 91.7 99.2 45.7 54.3
2017-18 24 OTT NHL 82 1625.3 1449 1862 43.8 -6.1 1070 1340 44.4 -5.5 62 8.1 90 90.8 98.9 41.2 58.8

Look at the evolution of his oZS% and CF%. This pattern is pretty normal and you'll find it in most of D-men advanced stats. Look at Risto for example :

Rasmus Ristolainen Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

 

[UnHappyDude]

Pretty good guess. He gets 4.3M.

Sens won't walk away. They had to expect to pay Ceci something in the 4M range.

If Ottawa elects for a 1 year term, I think that's a sign that they'd want to trade Ceci by the end of next season. A 1 year term opens up a new team to be able to sign Ceci to a long term extension as soon as January 2019 rather than having to be in the awkward spot where a team wants to acquire Ceci with 1.5 years left as a long term piece, but can't ink a contract until July 1st 2019.

If the Sens intend on keeping Ceci, electing for a 2 year term makes the most sense because now with a 4.3M salary, the minimum Ceci can make next year if qualified would be 4.3M. The only reason in this case to go with a 1 year deal would be to keep the option open of potentially just walking away from Ceci as a UFA next year because they don't think he is worth 4.3M and aren't sure there's a trade market for him. I don't think this is likely, but on a 1 year deal, the Senators could opt not to qualify Ceci next year, and then not have to pay him 4.3M for a second season.

Thank you. I used my powers of deduction. I also predict stone will sign in the 7.3 mill range

 

[L'Aveuglette]

Expected $4m and that's pretty much what he got. Meh. Unless he shows the team more than he's shown already, he's probably gone next year as well. This deal was the best case scenario as of now, imo.

 

[L'Aveuglette]

Absolutely. His utilization leaves a lot to be desired. BUT, who else do you play? The defense was pretty thin last year, lacked mobility, had too much inexperience and was playing in front of a goaltending duo who shat the bed on a nightly basis. It's a recipe for disaster if one has ever been cooked up.

Could he be better in more optimal conditions? I think the evidence suggests the answer is overwhelmingly yes. He's a victim of being on a team that's still building out their defense corps and will have some growing pains to match it.

That's one hot take right here.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Per Friedman, Ceci at 4.3

Definitely not worth what he was awarded, but this is much better than anything north of 5 mil.

A little less than the mid point

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

I said it'd be 4.25 to 4.5

 

[Emerica]

Great stuff

 

[FlyingJ]

And like you said in front of one of the worst goaltending duos in the league... Losing Methot really hurt and Phaneuf slowing down really hurt his efficiency. How to fix this? Signing a once very good but on his last legs D-man in Oduya and throwing young D-men Claesson and Harpur into the fire. Going cheap rarely works out.

https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/bang-for-the-buck.2170329/page-3#post-126487243

The "especially given Phaneuf's age" makes me particularly laugh here... Dion is 31 and his contract expires at 35 y/o, an age where most non-marginal NHL players still play at a great/good/decent level. Phaneuf is already slow so the argument can't be that he is going to be slow. Like many D-men before, his playing style and overall game won't be affected much by growing older from 31 to 35 (unless he doesn't take care of himself, but bad news for you he is apparently a fitness freak). The HF notion of age is ridiculous. He could even decide to lose a bit of weight to be faster (a bit like Neil did)

 

[Langdon Alger]

It's their own fault for overpaying on his last contract. It just shows you shouldn't pay for potential when a guy comes off his ELC. It can bite you in the next deal and beyond.

See Cowen, Jared.

 

[BankStreetParade]

That's one hot take right here.

There's no hot take when there's people in this thread saying they'd walk away from Ceci. It sort of implies that they think there's no way he can be better than what he is.

 

[Alex1234]

After 366 gp you start having habits (bad or good) more then room for improvement IMO

Ceci is funny to watch and in these dark times as a Sens fan we get to watch him play one more year so more laughs are welcome

Good stuff

 

[Peptic Balcers]

Could he be better in more optimal conditions? I think the evidence suggests the answer is overwhelmingly yes.

That's one hot take right here.

There's no hot take when there's people in this thread saying they'd walk away from Ceci. It sort of implies that they think there's no way he can be better than what he is.

I mean like dont sidestep the fact that you just said that there is overwhelming evidence for Ceci to be a respectable top 4 D. There is nothing tangible to support this. Im not saying that Ceci can't turn it around, but to claim that its just a matter of time before he becomes good is uhhh being optimistic and not an evidence based approach

 

[Alex1234]

Pretty good guess. He gets 4.3M.

Sens won't walk away. They had to expect to pay Ceci something in the 4M range.

If Ottawa elects for a 1 year term, I think that's a sign that they'd want to trade Ceci by the end of next season. A 1 year term opens up a new team to be able to sign Ceci to a long term extension as soon as January 2019 rather than having to be in the awkward spot where a team wants to acquire Ceci with 1.5 years left as a long term piece, but can't ink a contract until July 1st 2019.

If the Sens intend on keeping Ceci, electing for a 2 year term makes the most sense because now with a 4.3M salary, the minimum Ceci can make next year if qualified would be 4.3M. The only reason in this case to go with a 1 year deal would be to keep the option open of potentially just walking away from Ceci as a UFA next year because they don't think he is worth 4.3M and aren't sure there's a trade market for him. I don't think this is likely, but on a 1 year deal, the Senators could opt not to qualify Ceci next year, and then not have to pay him 4.3M for a second season.

Agree
I think he gets traded too at the TDL and they wanted to pay as less as possible.
Otherwise it doesn’t make sens to not extend him

 

[BankStreetParade]

I mean like dont sidestep the fact that you just said that there is overwhelming evidence for Ceci to be a respectable top 4 D. There is nothing tangible to support this. Im not saying that Ceci can't turn it around, but to claim that its just a matter of time before he becomes good is uhhh being optimistic and not an evidence based approach

I said he could be better in more optimal conditions. And yes there’s periods in his career where he showed a much higher caliber of play when put in better situations.

I’m saying this never ending crap fest is too over the top. Put him in a better spot and he’ll perform better. It’s pretty close to guaranteed.

 

[Caeldan]

To all those supporting Ceci blaming the goaltending, I think it's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.
Was the goaltending bad because the defense in front of it was terrible? Or was the defense bad because they were overcompensating for goaltending they didn't trust?

4.3M to me seems a lot for Ceci, but given where he has to play on the team compared to what other 'second pairing' D get, I guess it's in that range.

 

[Sensung]

Accept the decision and then play him with Chabot.

 

[Mr Hat]

I said he could be better in more optimal conditions. And yes there’s periods in his career where he showed a much higher caliber of play when put in better situations.

I’m saying this never ending crap fest is too over the top. Put him in a better spot and he’ll perform better. It’s pretty close to guaranteed.

Everyone is better in more optimal conditions, it is literally impossible not to be by the definition of optimal. I think what you mean is he needs to be sheltered from playing against top lines, which is optimal for his mediocre skill set and inability to move the puck under pressure. He needs more time and space and then he won't stick out as such a liability. I'd agree with him being a positive asset at 3 mill and playing a true #4, 5 role instead of a minute muncher like he is now.