Quoting: CD282
It's interesting to me to see the disparity between professional opinions on Ceci and fan opinions.
Ceci has been a top-4 defender in the NHL for 8 seasons, for 4 different teams and under 7 coaches. There is no debate on what NHL people think of him at this point, and yet fans treat him like he's worthless. Your opinion, and that of many others, just can't be reconciled with the facts.
Look at the current playoff run as an example. Ceci JUST scored a huge goal in G7, nobody cares. Dump him. He's #2 for 5v5 TOI among Oilers defensemen, he's worthless. He's #3 for PK TOI and hasn't allowed a goal against, fire him into the sun.
I mean, it's pretty clear the Oilers coaching staff values what he brings, otherwise they would fade his TOI. They haven't.
It can be reconciled, just with a different set of facts. Another way to frame it is that he's been a flawed 2nd pair RD on 2 different teams without better options (EDM and TOR) and a good 3RD on PIT.
I see a flawed 2nd pairing RD that has specific weaknesses that EDM has seen exposed in all 3 of the its playoff runs (to varying degrees) while playing alongside Nurse: below average skating and not good enough decision making to make up for it. I could also delve into chance and scoring metrics or microstats to bolster my case but those are secondary to my case. Maybe the shortcomings of the pairing are more on Nurse than Ceci but Nurse isn't going anywhere so, for change to occur, Ceci has to move either down or out. For me, the answer is out as I have upgrades that I want to make elsewhere using the extra 2.5mil I gain from moving on from Ceci.
It's entirely plausible that he returns more than I have him doing but, as I've said to you before, I'm taking the middleground between what EDM fans see and what opposing fans see. Ceci for FC or a late pick is such a middleground and I've done similar with my proposal of Kulak for a 4th. If every fanbase just keeps yelling into the ether that their guy is definitely worth a 2nd or will definitely cost a 2nd to move, no compromise or better understanding is reached. I prefer continuing the discussion and fine tuning trade proposals to see exactly where the line is for other team's fans instead of shouting into the endless void. In doing so, when a trade eventually happens, I can better understand how close/far fans are/were from reality.