Toronto Defenseman and former first round draft pick Cody Ceci's performance has been in and out of the news, in an analytics war regarding his overall stats on the ice. Ceci was traded from the Ottawa Senators to the Leafs in July of 2019.

The trade has largely been viewed as Toronto getting out of the Nikita Zaitsev and Connor Brown contracts, with Ceci being more of a 'price to pay' than a prized trade. Ceci has often, through his time in the NHL, been discredited as making poor on-ice judgments, as well as having a less than hoped for hockey sense.

Shortly after the trade, Mike Babcock had the defenseman spending time in the top pair with Leafs star defenseman Morgan Rielly, and seeing plenty of ice time. Through his first twenty games, Ceci has obtained 4 points, including a game winning goal. According to Kyle Dubas, the Maple Leafs' general manager, Ceci has performed "above expectations."

He was quoted as saying the following;

"Cody's an interesting one. ... I think it goes back to the war between data and subjective scouting. he seems to be a very polarizing player. So it's been interesting, even when everything underlying about him has been relatively solid, especially when you consider his usage, there seems to be every tiny thing that he does becomes a referendum on whether he's good or not. Which is mind-boggling to me because if that would have been done by subjective-oriented hockey people in the past the objective people would have jumped all over it. Now the inverse seems to be happening and it's Cody that seems to be the player that it's happening about. I think every defenseman that plays that much and plays in that role is going to have mistakes. You play against the best players in the league, they're good players. Every defenseman in the league - no matter how good they are - you play against the best players every night you're going to have time to time when you're not going to look your best. But I think he's been a good addition for us and has played above expectations from when we acquired him, and we're very happy with him."

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