The Ottawa Golden Knight.
New contributor Alec Avedissian asks the question on the minds of every Ottawa Senators fan; what will they do for the Expansion Draft?
In case you forgot, the NHL Expansion Draft is rapidly approaching.
Teams will soon be releasing their lists of protected players to the Vegas Golden Knights, which can either consist of seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender or eight skaters (forwards/defensemen) and one goaltender. They must also make sure to expose a minimum of 2 forwards and 1 of each a goaltender and defender who meet the required amount of NHL experience. For a player to be eligible to be picked for the expansion, they must have at least two years of professional experience and have played at least 40 NHL games over the past season or 70 in the past two, goaltenders simply need to be under contract for next season or to be a Restricted Free Agent with a Qualifying offer from their team. Players with a potential career ending injury also need not be protected. Vegas is required to take one player from each team.
Any players with “No-Movement Clauses” (NMC) must be protected and count towards their team’s protected list. However, teams may ask their players with an NMC to waive this right in order to be exposed in the draft.
With that being said, the question quickly becomes who Ottawa will lose to the expansion draft. Dion Phaneuf and Bobby Ryan are the only two players on the team with NMCs. Ryan’s contract has a loophole in it allowing him to be exposed, while Phaneuf has reportedly been asked to waive his NMC. Protecting Erik Karlsson is obviously the biggest priority, while Turris, Hoffman and Stone should also be no brainers. Ottawa’s GM Pierre Dorion has also announced that the Senators will be protecting goaltender Craig Anderson.
Ottawa shouldn’t go the eight skater route, even if Phaneuf agrees to waive his No-Movement Clause. Going that route would force them to protect only one of Ryan, Brassard, Smith, MacArthur and Pageau, which would leave Vegas drooling with options. By going the 7/3/1 route, Ottawa would be able to lock up the rest of their forward core. MacArthur, while being a big part of the teams core has been battling injuries for the past 2 years and has only played 4 out of 82 regular season games each of the past 2 years. He made a comeback for this years playoff run and ended up scoring the series clinching goal against the Boston Bruins, however after being eliminated by the Penguins he did state he had some pain in his neck and would need some time to think about his long term health before coming back and playing hockey again next year. Exposing MacArthur due to his injury woes seems unethical but in reality is a low risk move and the one the Senators should make. This would allow Ottawa to only expose one of their top four defensemen, Ceci and Methot being the likely candidates (provided Dion Phaneuf doesn’t waive his NMC).
This is where the discussion starts to get interesting.
Trying to solve the riddle on defence is quite the debate. If Phaneuf is willing to waive his No-Movement Clause, you would hands down expose him and hope his $7 million contract is too unappealing for Vegas. If “Double Dion” doesn’t waive, then you have to decide between the other two players that round out Ottawa’s top four. Which do you protect: the sturdy yet unspectacular veteran Methot or the more promising Ceci, who has shown his fair share of struggles over his almost 300 game NHL career?
Marc Methot is a no-nonsense player, much more of a one dimensional shutdown defenseman. He definitely has less offensive upside than Ceci. He is 31 years old and will most likely start a slow decline over the next few years as he continues to age.
Methot also makes almost twice as much money as Ceci ($4.9 million cap hit vs $2.8 million). Methot plays on Ottawa’s top pairing alongside Erik Karlsson, where his physical style is the perfect compliment to Karlsson’s otherworldly offensive skills; they are arguably the pair with the best chemistry in the NHL.
Dorion has made it no secret that the Senators are in a “win now” mode while Karlsson is still under a reasonable contract and the division is wide open. It’s hard to think that that they would even consider exposing the Ying to Karlsson’s Yang. Vegas would surely not hesitate to take Methot, especially given Golden Knights GM George McPhee having stated he is looking to build the VGK (Vegas Golden Knights) defense with reliable veteran defensemen and young talented forwards. Methot certainly fits that mold (fortunately MacArthur does not).
Cody Ceci is 23 years old. He was drafted relatively high (15th overall in 2012) and promises to be a solid two-way NHL defenseman with good size and a solid shot if he can ever pull all his other skills together.
Currently, he slots in on Ottawa’s second defensive pairing, playing predominantly with a grizzled veteran in Dion Phaneuf. From what I’ve seen this year, he struggled to generate offence, putting up only 17 points in 79 regular season games (taking a step back from his 26 point career high last season), as well as only 1 point in 19 playoff games.
He also struggled in the defensive end, often getting beaten by faster players and giving away the puck when he does get it on his stick with careless passes. He finished with the worst possession numbers of any Senators defenseman that played at least 1600 minutes of even strength hockey over the past two years. During that span, he also played the second most minutes out of that same group (Karlsson, Methot, Phaneuf, Wideman and Borowiecki). You can’t have someone play as many minutes as he does and be that ineffective.
Cody Ceci has contributed 45.08 percent Corsi in about 17 minutes average time on ice per game over the past 154 regular season games. For a quick comparison, his partner Phaneuf has contributed a much better 48.6 percent Corsi in almost identical minutes and games played over the same time span. Methot even has respectable possession numbers at 47.11 percent, which is much more impressive given he plays more minutes per game, often against much tougher competition.
It is also important to note the organization’s positional depth. If the Sens lose Methot, they would have to move Phaneuf or someone like Borowiecki onto the top pairing with Karlsson, neither of which is ideally suited to play well in that kind of a role long term. Alternatively, having Wideman or Claesson jump into the top four spot temporarily would be a much less painless transition. This could also open up the door for future stud Thomas Chabot — a 20 year-old, highly intelligent, smooth skating two-way defenseman who led his QMJHL team to compete in the Memorial Cup and was voted defenseman of the year. He certainly has all the tools to excel in Ceci’s current spot by this time next year.
In a perfect world, you hate to lose a young asset for nothing. If Ottawa decides that moving on from Ceci is the way to go, they should look at trading him. There are a lot of teams out there who would take a chance on a 23 year-old right hand shot defenseman with upside. Working against the Senators in this is the fact that other teams also in a similar position to Ottawa have their own talented young defensemen who have proven more than Ceci at the NHL level.
However, getting reduced value for Ceci is still better than losing him for nothing. If Ottawa does manage to trade Ceci, the options Vegas has from Ottawa drop off significantly in talent, giving them a choice between Dzingel, Borowiecki, Claesson or Wideman.
If the Golden Knights end up taking any of those four players, the Ottawa Senators would surely consider that a win.
Alec Avedissian is a hockey contributor for TheOcho.ca.
