the other thing is Dermot is out for a while, so they need to cover him.
and provides a buffer for Sandin/Lil
Ceci cant be totally awful right?
Right????
- senstroll
This is long, but it's an objective look at Cody Ceci, and it's not pretty.
We know that he is not an analytics darling by any stretch, but one thing we hear is that the Leafs feel that he has had bad partners and this has adversely affected his game. Better partners, perhaps better structure will improve his play.
So I took a look at Ceci's possession performance starting in 2015/2016. I started here because he had a year and a half in the league by then and it was his first (and only) plus season, which seems like a fair place to begin evaluating him and his partners. For the purposes of evaluation, I looked at 5v5 play, and eliminated anyone who had fewer than 100 minutes on the ice with Ceci in that season.
In 2015/2016, the Senators had a team 5v5 CF of 47.45%. Ceci had a CF% of 44.41%. He was paired with Wiercoch predominantly, but also saw some time with Phaneuf and Methot. Of the 18 players who played more than 100 minutes with Ceci (excluding Goalies, bceause that's like double-counting compared to the team), 16 of them were better when Ceci was not on the ice. Only Chiasson and Nick Paul were better when Ceci was on the ice. While not driving the play, goal prevention does seem to be something he is slightly better at, where 10 of the 18 had better goal prevention numbers with Ceci. That being said, two of his principal partners - Methot and Wiercoch - were significantly more effective at goal prevention away from Ceci. Dion Phaneuf, who was a disaster without Ceci, was drastically improved playing with him.
2016/2017 saw the Senators improve in the standings to 98 points, however they still had a team CF% of 48.57%. Ceci was again below the team average at 45.69%. He played about 70% of his 5v5 time paired with Phaneuf. Of the 15 players who played more than 100 minutes with Ceci, only 1 (Methot) had better posession numbers when Ceci was on the ice. In fact of those players who had more than 100 minutes with Ceci, they averaged a CF% of 49.4% without Ceci and 45.7% with him. This year did not demonstrate any case where perhaps Ceci was better at goal prevention with only 2 players have improved goal prevention numbers with Ceci.
The last couple of years have been a disaster for the Senators. In 2017 they had a CF% of 47.2% and in 2018, 44.9%. In those years, Ceci was 44.34% and 43.96%.
In 2017, of the 19 players Ceci played more than 100 minutes with, 16 were better off without Ceci. In fact both Stone and Brassard had a notable 10% improvement in possession away from Ceci. His goal prevention was slightly better, with 7 of the 19 having better prevention numbers than Ceci. Although his primary D partners for the year - Phaneuf, Chabot, and Borowiecki - all performed better away from Ceci in terms of goal prevention.
In 2018, the Senators, I believe, were bad enough to make Ceci look slightly better. Of the 18 players he played more than 100 minutes with, 7 of them were better with Ceci. This did exclude his primary defensive partner, Lajoie, but Chabot's 247 minutes with Ceci saw him perform better. His goal prevention numbers were the same, 7 players performing better, including Chabot.
Comparing Ceci to Zaitsev, on a good team in 2018, Zaitsev was clearly dragging down the team around him. Of the 18 players with whom he played more than 100 minutes, 15 posted poorer possession and goal prevention numbers. Only the Tavares line performed better with Zaitsev on the ice.
In 2017, Zaitsev had the injury that we had hoped he would recover from. Due to the injury, he had fewer minutes, but of the 13 players he played more than 100 minutes with, only Dominic Moore, and Gardiner posted better CF%. It should be noted the variance for Gardiner was 0.05%, however Zaitsev's play away from Gardiner was 7.13% worse.
