March 4, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg

This is part three of my series on players that could be heading out of Edmonton prior to Friday’s trade deadline. Warren Foegele and Dylan Holloway were the focuses of the first two pieces in this series. Cody Ceci is up today.

Related: To Trade or Not to Trade: Dylan Holloway

Head coach Kris Knoblauch swapped Ceci and Vincent Desharnais around for Sunday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, which was an odd shift. Knoblauch tried Desharnais with Nurse for two games during their February California road trip. They won the first game in Anaheim, but lost in Los Angeles the next night. Knoblauch didn’t have a great answer for why the switch was made when he was asked about after Sunday’s game, which makes me think that the organization wants to see if there is an internal alternative to the Nurse – Ceci pairing before making the decision to trade Ceci along with a valuable draft pick for another defenceman.

The Oilers were one of the finalists for Chris Tanev. Pierre LeBrun reported that a team offered the Calgary Flames a first round pick for Tanev, but that came with having to take a contract back, which the Flames were not interested in doing. Elliotte Friedman wrote that he believes that first round pick came from the Oilers. Tanev would’ve taken Ceci’s spot on the right side of the second pairing, so it makes total sense that the Oilers would’ve offered a first round pick and Ceci for Tanev. That’s evidence that the Oilers are seriously considering an upgrade in Ceci’s spot.

Ceci is an interesting case. Ceci is hovering around 50% in pretty much every underlying five on five metric on Natural Stat Trick this season. That’s not amazing, but it’s certainly not terrible either. By my eye, Ceci has been appearing in a lot of instant replays of goals against lately. He certainly leaves me wanting more out of my second pairing right defenceman.

Ceci has played 396:15 with Leon Draisaitl this season, which is more than he has played with any other forward this season. First of all, Ceci only has two goals this season. In fact, his first goal of the season broke a 126-game goalless drought for Ceci! He only had one goal last season, which he scored in the fourth game. Now he has two goals in his last eleven games. Hopefully the puck starts going in more for him now.

Anyway, I would expect a defenceman that gets most of his time with Draisaitl to light the lamp more than once or twice a season. Ceci gets his fair share of chances! For comparison’s sake, Darnell Nurse (Ceci’s partner) has six goals this season. Nurse is consistently among the top twenty in even strength scoring by defencemen, so perhaps that’s not a fair comparison; but it’s fair to want a little bit more offence out of Ceci. Having said that, Ceci and Draisaitl have outscored the opposition 24-18 (57.14%) at five on five this season, although their expected goals percentage is only 50.95%.

According to Puck IQ, Ceci has played 310.6 five on five minutes (31.3% of his ice time) against elite competition. He has been outscored 12-16 (42.9%) by elite opponents. Ceci has played 416.2 minutes against middle level competition and outscored the opponent 17-11 (60.7%). Ideally, the Oilers would have someone that fares better against elite competition playing on their second pairing. I’ll note that Draisaitl gets 44.7% of his ice time against middle level competition, and Ceci plays with Draisaitl more than any other forward. One could deduce that Ceci fares so well against middle level competition because of Draisaitl.

Natural Stat Trick shows us that Ceci has really struggled with his high danger goal percentage. His high danger scoring chance percentage is 54.33%, but his high danger goal share is 20-27 (42.55%). A similar pattern exists for Ceci and Nurse together. Their HDCF% as a pairing is 54.6%, but their HDGF% is only 45% (18-22). 

High danger goals come from breakdowns in the defensive zone and off odd-man rushes. Their struggles with high danger goal share indicate that they don’t read well off of each other in the defensive zone and that they don’t defend the rush well together.

The thing that concerns me most about Ceci and Nurse as a pairing is that they were outscored 1-8 at five on five during last year’s playoff series against the Vegas Golden Knights. They were victimized by Jack Eichel’s line with Jonathan Marchessault and Ivan Barbashev. The Oilers could easily end up playing against the Golden Knights in a first round playoff matchup this season. I’m nervous about the idea of Ceci and Nurse in that series based on what happened last year. That could be why the team is exploring the Nurse – Desharnais pairing now.

The benefit to keeping Ceci is that he has cost certainty for next season. Given that the Oilers’ cap situation is as tight as it is and that the Oilers will have performance bonus carryovers for Connor Brown and Corey Perry that will eat up the majority of the expected league salary cap increase for next season, cost certainty for next season is fantastic. 

While Ceci leaves me wanting more, it will be hard to get anyone that provides better value at Ceci’s price point next season. Ceci’s $3.25 million cap hit is tied for 108th highest among all current NHL defencemen according to Sportrac. There are obviously four top four defence spots on each team times 32 teams, which equals 128 top four defencemen in the league. Ceci is breaking even in five on five goal share while being in the bottom 16% in terms of payroll for top four defencemen. That’s decent value. If he starts finishing on a few more chances and bearing down on high danger chances in his own zone, the contract will look even better. Sean Walker and Alexandre Carrier are both providing better value for their teams right now, but both are impending UFAs that will command more than Ceci’s cap hit for next season.

Related: To Trade or Not to Trade: Warren Foegele

Nobody is really sure what the Oilers will do at the deadline because they have been exploring so many different options. My view on the market is that there are top six wingers available that would represent a significant upgrade over the rotating cast of middle and bottom six forwards that have been thrust into scoring roles for the Oilers at different times this season. Walker and Carrier are both upgrades on Ceci, but not significant upgrades. The Oilers clearly valued Tanev, and I’m not sure that they will want to spend big assets on a plan B when Ceci is holding his own and there are more significant upgrades available at other positions.

I would certainly be open to trading Ceci for an upgrade at his position if I had some assurance that the incoming player could be retained at a cap hit the Oilers could manage next season. Doing so might mean that the Oilers would have to give up something from another spot on the roster, such as Brett Kulak’s $2.75 million on the third pairing. That’s a nice segue into tomorrow’s piece on Kulak.