This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Cody Ceci
Edmonton Oilers Defense
The 5th-fewest penalties drawn of the 202 qualified defencemen and the 8th percentile for penalties taken — twenty-one minutes of nothing happening.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-14 | OTT | 49 | 3 | 6 | 9 | -5 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 82 | 3.7 | 17:12 |
| 2014-15 | OTT | 81 | 5 | 16 | 21 | -4 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 130 | 3.9 | 19:17 |
| 2015-16 | OTT | 75 | 10 | 16 | 26 | +9 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 116 | 8.6 | 19:18 |
| 2016-17 | OTT | 79 | 2 | 15 | 17 | -11 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 143 | 1.4 | 23:12 |
| 2017-18 | OTT | 82 | 5 | 14 | 19 | -27 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 143 | 3.5 | 23:20 |
| 2018-19 | OTT | 74 | 7 | 19 | 26 | -22 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 132 | 5.3 | 22:34 |
| 2019-20 | TOR | 56 | 1 | 7 | 8 | +7 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 48 | 2.1 | 20:32 |
| 2020-21 | PIT | 53 | 4 | 13 | 17 | +18 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 58 | 6.9 | 18:31 |
| 2021-22 | EDM | 78 | 5 | 23 | 28 | +8 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 102 | 4.9 | 20:54 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 627 | 42 | 129 | 171 | -27 | 132 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 954 | 4.4 | 20:47 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
5 goals and 23 assists in 78 games — 28 points and a plus-8 at 20:54 a night, the 61st percentile among defencemen — with 14 penalty minutes. 2:34 a night short-handed is the 83rd percentile.
51.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,414 minutes, the 61st percentile. His ice went 57-61 against an expectation of 60.25-56.94.
Sixteen playoff games for a goal and six assists.
The Finesse Game
3.75 shots per 60 is the 35th percentile among defencemen and 6 per cent come from the slot at a median of 51 feet. Not one of his twenty-eight points came on the power play — 0:02 a night — and he has one power-play goal in 627 NHL games.
1.05 even-strength points per 60 is the 64th percentile, which is the interesting number: all twenty-eight points at even strength and short-handed, from a defensive defenceman.
0.55 takeaways per 60 is the 14th percentile against 1.44 giveaways at the 34th. He moves the puck simply and does not steal it.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 210. 4.31 hits per 60 is the 53rd percentile and 4.45 blocks is the 60th. Both ordinary, at twenty-one minutes a night on a top four.
Then the discipline. 0.074 penalties drawn per 60 is the 5th-fewest of the 202 qualified defencemen and 0.26 taken is the 8th percentile. Fourteen penalty minutes in seventy-eight games. Nothing happens around him in either direction, and on a club whose first-pair defenceman took fifty-four minutes and whose top winger took sixty in forty-three games, that is worth a great deal more than it looks.
22.7 mph is the 88th percentile among defencemen, which is genuinely quick, against 2.0 bursts over 20 mph per 60 at the 65th and 8.33 miles per 60 at the 35th. He has a gear he does not often use.
The Intangibles
Fifteenth overall in 2012, and 627 NHL games at 28 with 171 points and a career minus-27 across four organisations.
With Darnell Nurse he took 54.7 per cent of the chances over 987 attempts and 49.3 without him. With Connor McDavid 59.0 over 767 and 47.9 without — the largest McDavid gap of any Edmonton defenceman.
With Duncan Keith he took 46.4 per cent over 906 attempts and 54.0 without him. Keith is off the roster and that is nine points of chance share returned to a top-four defenceman for nothing.
A right-shot defenceman who kills penalties, takes none, plays twenty-one minutes and has no offence is exactly what a club with two 110-point centres needs. The reputation is worse than the file.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.18 penalty minutes a game over 78, 8th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
- durable· was available
78 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“Nothing happens around him in either direction”
“all twenty-eight points at even strength and short-handed, from a defensive defenceman”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,414 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.4%
- 66th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.3%
- 67th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 57 for, 61 against. Expected: 60.3 and 56.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 40 points above where the report does. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 55 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 78 games
- Top speed
- 22.7 mph
- 92nd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.71 a game
- Distance
- 2.90 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 96.2 mph
- 78th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 1414 minutes at five-on-five
- Duncan Keithoff the roster40%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2021-22
- The club
- EDM took 51.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.4% — 0.1 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,414 minutes at five-on-five — 94th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darnell Nurse | 54.7% | 49.3% | 52.3% |
| Leon Draisaitl | 48.7% | 53.2% | 51.2% |
| Duncan Keith | 46.4% | 54.0% | 51.7% |
54.7% together, 49.3% for him apart and 52.3% for Nurse apart. He was worse away from Nurse, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Nurse did.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
127 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 34 feet. 3% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 77% from beyond forty.