The Toronto Maple Leafs may be about to repeat their biggest mistake.
During the first day of the Toronto Maple Leafs training camp, reporters had tweeted out the lines and defensive pairings, and once again Morgan Rielly was paired with defensive superstar Cody Ceci.
Like a scene out of the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day, we’ve seen this before.
This automatically got my heart rate rising, because this is a misstep, and Cody Ceci does not belong in the top-4 and perhaps not even in the top-6.
The Leafs need to stop this now.
Toronto Maple Leafs Error in Strategy
The first goal here just shows how uncoordinated the pairing is.
Simply by taking a look at the expected goals and scoring chances of Rielly with and without Ceci, it is evident that Rielly is better without Ceci.
This is a common theme not only for Rielly but for almost every player who has played with Ceci over the years, not only with the Toronto Maple Leafs but with Ottawa as well.
Ceci has been a drag on almost every partner he has played with since he has entered the league and I don’t think its a coincidence.
The Rielly and Ceci pairing does not work. To put it straight, Ceci does not really help out any defensemen.
Just take a look at this awful level of gap control where Rielly and Ceci keep backing up until Tampa Bay’s top line has a high danger scoring chance.
Since coming into the league, Ceci has shown an inability to be an above replacement level player. This essentially means that most teams can call up their best AHL defensemen and that player will do just as well if placed in the same position.
On top of that, the argument that the Toronto Maple Leafs need him for defensive situations or penalty killing is a really poor one. Ceci gets lost in his own zone consistently, and although the other players the Leafs have may not be better at defensive coverage, they sure aren’t worse than Ceci and they are considerably better in all three zones overall.
This brings up to the fact that Travis Dermott is a far better player than Cody Ceci and deserves to be playing with Rielly, even if it is on the right side.
Just before the season ended, Dermott was playing top-pair and it seemed as if he was really starting to find his footing.
In the last game against Flordia, Dermott played against Florida’s top line of Huberdeau-Barkov-Dadonov almost exclusively and dominated that line when he played against them with a 79 xGF% at 5v5. This goes to show Dermott has it in him to shut down high-level players, and he may not be a top pairing guy, but he is certainly a top-4 level player.
Over the past 3 seasons since Dermott has come into the league his adjusted plus-minus expected goals against is in the top 30 of all defensemen with a minimum of 1500 minutes. He shares similar numbers with Mark Giordano, Hampus Lindholm, and Ryan Ellis.
The Leafs really need to play Dermott in the top-4, he puts up the best defensive numbers on the team and the Leafs could really use more of that. Plenty of the Leafs defensemen (Rielly and Barrie) notably struggle defensively and someone to help round that out that weakness may be the difference between winning and losing a playoff series.
Dermott’s excellent defensive numbers are mainly attributed to his elite-level gap control which is in the 99th percentile of all NHL defensemen.
If opposing players are unable to get the puck in the offensive zone, they obviously won’t be able to score. Transition is a key ingredient for success. This is why players including Jaccob Slavin and Jared Spurgeon always have great numbers, the other team isn’t in their zone often because of their strong gap control, and in turn, their team spends more time in the offensive zone.
If we look at a sophisticated model that compares players based on historical analytics formulated on various factors, Dermott’s skater similarity is most in sync with the likes of Ryan Ellis from his age 20-22 seasons, Brent Burns from his age 22-24 seasons, and Chris Tanev from his age 21-23 seasons.
Being compared with players from the same age group that have gone on to be very successful defensemen I think goes to show that Dermott is not just a “guy.” In fact, he has been very good in his first few seasons at a very young age, and Dermott having a spot in the top-4 is long overdue.
With Dermott paired with Rielly, this will help offset Rielly’s weakness of gap control which is something Ceci certainly does not have the ability to do and is probably even worse than Rielly in this category.
With Rielly and Ceci on the ice, attacking players are able to too easily get into the Leafs zone and get a prime scoring opportunity.
Dermott is great a defending the rush, attacking players have a real hard time at getting into the offensive zone with him on the ice which of course will limit the number of goals scored against.
If Dermott were to get top-4 minutes, it will allow for the other 4 players Dermott is on the ice with to have more offensive zone time, and if he spends more time with the Leafs top-6 forwards it is a given the Leafs elite offensive players will have more scoring chances.
Former assistant coach of the Toronto Marlies, Jack Han talked a lot about this briefly in a recent article of his here.
A player with the skating agility and aggressiveness needs to find himself being played more, especially over mediocre players such as Ceci. Dermott is also probably the second-best player at using the body on the Toronto Maple Leafs and he will be needed to play big against a team such as Columbus.
If Dermott is tasked with playing with Morgan Rielly this likely means he will be playing the right side.
Unlike other Leaf players, Dermott hasn’t shown any issue with playing the ride side and welcomes it. It is also known that Dermott played on the right side for long stretches during his youth and many times with the Marlies.
With Dermott’s superb skating ability, it shouldn’t be an issue for him playing on the right side.
Left defensemen playing on the right side shouldn’t be such a foreign concept to coaches and executives in the NHL. A lot of players have found success in doing it. Take star left-handed defensemen, Miro Heiskanen of the Dallas Stars for example. At age 19 and 20 he has had plenty of success playing primarily on the right side.
Better yet, take a look at the Vegas Golden Knights. Since Vegas has been in the league they have run 4 left-handed defensemen and 2 right-handed defensemen essentially the whole time. It obviously hasn’t stopped the franchise from having success.
Moving back to Travis Dermott, I believe that he has more offensive ability than we have seen in the NHL thus far. By no means do I believe Dermott will ever have the offensive ability of someone such as Rielly, but I can see potential where he is a solid contributor.
Dermott’s offense hasn’t been something that has emerged yet in the NHL, however, he has shown glimpses of brilliance offensively. Take a look at his first goal in the NHL, he looked like Erik Karlsson 2.0.
If Dermott were to get a shot with Rielly, this will give him a chance to play more minutes with the Leafs top two lines where he would likely have more offensive opportunities.
Months back I also wrote a piece as to why Dermott needs to move up the lineup that goes more in-depth here.
The Verdict:
Overall, any way you look at things, Ceci playing on the top-4 is a mistake, and I strongly believe Dermott would flourish in a top-4 role.
The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t really given Dermott a fair shot to see what his potential is and it would be nice to them to do it now. It would also give Rielly a capable partner for almost the first time in his career, something I believe he greatly deserves.