Toronto Maple Leafs: The Cody Ceci Experiment Makes No Sense

The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Cody Ceci from the Ottawa Senators this past summer.

Since the Toronto Maple Leafs were getting out of the Zaitsev and Brown contracts, Ceci was thought to be more the price they had to pay, rather than a prize they received.

But then for some reason inexplicable to anyone who’d ever seen him play or looked at his stats sheet, Mike Babcock promised him a top four job shortly after the trade.

Could this be to just build his value? Could the Leafs be looking to flip him?  Did they front load his one year deal with bonus money to facilitate a trade? We didn’t know, but we tried to guess.  (It turns out they didn’t).

Then training camp came along and it turns out the Toronto Maple Leafs were serious.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Cody Ceci

The Leafs have used Ceci exclusively on their top pair with Morgan Rielly this fall.  Now, he has been perfectly fine, and in the absence of Travis Dermott from the lineup, no one is complaining too much.

I mean, every team has a bad contract, so what’s so bad about a one-year deal for $4.5 if a guy can play top pairing and maybe rediscover the talent that got him drafted so high to begin with?

There are three problems with that:

1. The Leafs are capped out and Ceci isn’t anywhere close to worth $4.5
2. They are playing their best defenseman with someone who will sap his value.
3. They Leafs are trying to win a cup this year.

Still, as much as it seemed like a bad idea, Ceci has played fine, the Leafs roster is good either way, and Dermott is still injured.

But that was before Rasmus Sandin played his way onto the team by being really damn good.

This means that when Travis Dermott returns, Cody Ceci is now the sixth best defenseman on the team.   Rielly, Muzzin, Barrie, Dermott, Sandin are all significantly better.

And you can’t pay your worst defenseman $4.5 million.  Especially when you’re capped out.

It just doesn’t make any sense.  When Dermott returns and is paired with Rielly, you could easily cut Ceci, replace him with Marincin and not notice a difference.

So can the Leafs build enough value between now and then to get something for Ceci? Has that been their plan all along?

Because otherwise, I don’t know what they’re thinking.

We’re seriously discussing if the Leafs should choose between Timashov and Agostino because Timashov makes less than the league minimum, even though Cody Ceci is clearly taking up way too much cap space?

Perhaps the Leafs see some talent in him.  Maybe they really believe they’ve found a diamond in the rough. Who am I to say they haven’t?  It hope that Cody Ceci is awesome and that I have to eat these words.

I hope that he’s the NHL’s Jose Bautista and suddenly and inexplicably becomes a star at a late age.

But if he is the team’s sixth best defenseman, which is almost certainly the case, his cap hit is not justifiable.