Cody Ceci wants 6M per year for his next contract. Let that sink in. He wants to get paid as much as Matt Dumba and more than Jacob Trouba. Luckily, Ottawa aren't as insane as Ceci offering 3.35M. Let me break this down.

Cody Ceci, a defenseman that does this (graph below), wants to get paid more than 2/3 defenseman such as Manson, Trouba, McDonagh, Skjei, Leddy, etc.



Getting paid 6M will make him tied for the 17th highest paid defenseman behind Yandle, Pietrangelo, and Karlsson and tied with Boychuk, Green, and Johnson. He would also get paid more than Hamilton, Keith and Niskanen.

For even more of a comparison, his contract would take about 7.5% of the cap space which is around the same as Dumba, Parayko, and Jones. Yes, a guy that puts up horrible Corsi and Fenwick, drags his team down offensively and defensively and not being able to supress shots if his life depended on it wants as much as the previously mentioned players who have proven themselves both offensively by racking up points and putting up solid defensive numbers.

Brayden Coburn at 3.7M is starting to sound good....

He will probably get 4,675 million for one year. The arbitrator will split the difference. But everyone in Ottawa will want to get overpaid after how badly they were treated.

I don't want to learn how to read those stats ... i don't understand them. Ceci is a good player with top 4 potential. I've always thought Ceci has underrated potential, as i've mentioned many times. However, he hasn't proven that he's a 6M type player yet. He knows he's not getting 6M per year. He's not a draft bust yet, but he might be going in that direction.

Bottom left means low amount of shot generation and terrible shot suppression. Top right means high amount of shot generation and terrible shot suppression.

The red is x player without Ceci.
The blue is Ceci without x player.
The black is Ceci with x player.

The chart says Ottawa is better without Ceci

In easier to read stats for you, Ceci's CF% rel and FF% rel is among the worst on a very poor Ottawa.

Red = higher amount of shots
Blue = lower amount of shots

Ceci, is used wrong in Ottawa, he's a good number 4. Boucher used him in a shut down role or dragging Phaneuf a**. If I were his coach I'd put him in a sheltered role with a good defensive defenseman (Dumoulin). He's more of an offensive defenseman than a shutdown guy. He also plays too much.

However 6 million is ridiculous.

You realize that what you’re saying has absolutely no meaning since you can’t accept these other opinions? I always prefer to use the eye test over analytics, but for players that I don’t watch all that much, these charts are extremely useful. But it doesn’t matter if you use the eye-test or analytics. He’s not good.

He wants more money than Colton Parayko, Seth Jones, Jacob Trouba, Dougie Hamilton and Brady Skjei, just to name a few. This is a player that I wouldn’t pay any more than $1M to be in a #6 role at most. You need to be willing to listen to what other people have to say instead of shooting down the argument because you say he’s underrated, even though I don’t think you know a thing about the player.

I said i don't want to learn how to read those stats ... it's too confusing lol.

I think he has underrated potential. It's too early to call him a draft bust. What i said in that post is pretty much that he's a bottom pairing d-man that is not worth anywhere near 6M.

Everything is clearly labeled... Just because you don't want to learn doesn't mean it's not important in player evaluation.

not that I'm primarily jumping to RAIF's defense, but I will make a note that hockey analytics Twitter has trouble more often than not with clearly communicating concepts through their visualizations to laypeople in a good way.

that being said, Micah Blake McCurdy's visualizations are probably the easiest to figure out of the many types that float around. and anybody that "doesn't want to learn" how to understand these visualizations should at least try instead of sitting there and asking to be spoon-fed conclusions.

I wouldn't assume Cody Ceci has deluded himself into believing he's worth $6 M. I think he's just trying to make the most of a system that doesn't lean towards readily giving players money, and he's exercising all of his CBA-given rights in order to get as much money as he can.

money, of course, is not everything in life, but if the system's very clearly trying to stiff you so that owners can line their own pockets even more than they already are, then you absolutely should not just lie down and let it happen.

I will say this — he realistically knows he isn’t getting $6M. He’s most likely trying to start negotiations as high as he can, to hope when they “meet in the middle” it’s as high as possible. But that doesn’t change the fact that this is a ridiculous starting point

Arbitrators just don't "split the difference". If that's the case, Ceci should have asked for 14m. But I like you reason why he should be overpaid, kinda like shift premium for working midnights.

Cody Ceci isn’t insane. He’s a smart bast*** looking to cash in on as much dough as possible. Props

I wish we would stop judging players for their arbitration requests EVERY SINGLE TIME

I understand starting out with a high asking price, but wew Ceci that is very high relative to what he brings. I agree he is used poorly; he should be a 3rd pairing, sheltered minutes, OZ only, PP2 defenseman. The problem is he doesn't generate a lot of shots even though he is generally an offensive defenseman, so he needs to be very sheltered if you want to get any value out of him. I'm talking Sergachev levels of sheltered.

Top right = good
Bottom left = bad

You do the math.

Ottawa will likely look for a 1-year deal and look to flip Ceci at the Trade Deadline.

All Ottawa can do is tank like the Sabres and hope to win a lottery (or three) in the coming years. The Senators may be icing some historically bad teams in the coming years and have no one to blame for it except themselves (with a weaker Cdn dollar thrown in for good measure).

It comes at a time when they are looking for funding for a new arena (as their current arena is literally a 30m (without traffic)drive from downtown and Ottawa isn’t that big to begin with). I hope that they can weather this storm as their history and franchise strength is not as long and strong as other teams. Sure the Quebecers will start circling soon, with the new arena in downtown Quebec City. Bettman would likely approve of a move of a Canadian team to another Canadian City more than a move of a US team.

Beyond his value as a trade commodity, there is nothing to be gained by sticking with Ceci who - as the illustrations shows - is not a net positive player. Objectively speaking his value is in the 3.5-4.5M range as a serviceable 2nd pairing defender. They may take 2y and try to ride out some of the next 2 years with him, even if the cap hit is a bit higher. And I don’t blame Ceci for wanting extra money to be part of a losing squad. He is certainly not going to be acquiring playoff time, or a shot at the Cup so there isn’t much left to play for in Ottawa at this point.

He isn’t a top-pairing defender but he knows that in Ottawa he may be the best they have - at least for the next 2 years - so he will leverage that.

Ottawa doesn't have a first round pick next year. If they acquire a first round pick via trade it's almost assured to be lottery protected.

Part of the reason Ottawa is better without Ceci is probably that if he's not on the ice, Erik Karlsson most likely is. I do agree that Ceci's asking for too much, though.

Yes, of course. In retrospect I am sure Dorion is regretting that move. With Karlsson & some other pieces on the team for at least part of 2018/19 I don’t think the nadir here yet - but come 2019/20 and 2030/21 well, all bets are off on how bad those teams will be.

The Isles got a non-lottery protected 1st round pick from Calgary last year in the Hamonic trade.