#mcdavid -> hyman on the 2nd goal

[wizardclown]

zach ♡♡♡

[starsandhughes]

Penalty Box Series— Quinn Hughes Edition (Ten)

23-24 Season Masterlist

previous: nine

next: eleven

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

yourusername

liked by lhughes_06, jackhughes, and 14, 296 others

yourusername welcome back to my postgame penalty box update show: quinn is the nhl's first star of the week edition!

the canucks are now 3/3 for the four game series against the oilers with their 6-2 win tonight, and oh, what a win it was!

professional best friend and hockey player quintin jerome hughes is SO tight with the hockey gods that they made the oilers's vincent desharnais poke the puck quinn just shot into his own net! thanks hockey gods for the quinn goal, a.k.a the first goal for the boys!

my blonde princess scored two of the six goals tonight, and quinny quinn assisted on both! #JustBestieThings he also assisted on millsy's goal, giving him A FOUR POINT NIGHT! AGAIN!

in case you aren't keeping count with me, this was quinn's 4th 3+ point night of the season, 20th of his career, his 2nd 4+ point night of the season, 3rd of his career, his 4th 3+ assist game of the season, 15th of his career, and his 5th multi point game of the season, 50th of his career! that's a lot of top notch games!

and for my favorite part of the game: the third period! for one, 🚨my man millsy and zach hyman dropped the gloves🥊🚨 they just... didn't do it well... i believed in j.t. but hyman was flailing about (it looked like he was trying to punch with both hands at once... interesting tactic i might have to steal when on regular ground) and j.t. quickly had him down on the ice! and digi held back a rowdy connor mcdavid and he fell to his knees! this is all because mccaptain was acting out all night and exchanged some cross checks with millsy, so hyman fought millsy for touching his captain, and digi grabbed mccaptain for touching his bestie

AND THEN, less than a minute later, mcdavid still had some angry cat vibes left in him and fell over suter while trying to cross check him and a scrum ensued! after being yanked out of the scrum, mcdavid then decided to shove quinn for no reason and then quinn JUMPED ON HIM to hold him back from going back in! i love it here! mcdavid got a penalty for roughing, and mr. leon draisaitl got a misconduct! AND LATER THE OILERS HEAD COACH GOT A MISCONDUCT! HOW COACHY CRO OF HIM!

in conclusion, i’m so proud of you quinn! you keep getting better and better every game and i'm enjoying every minute of it! here's to many more four point nights🤍 i love you way past infinity!

tagged _quinnhughes

view all 243 comments

_quinnhughes the fact that this wasn't solely a mcdavid praise post for hitting me is shocking (i love you way past beyond, sissy💙)

yourusername i thought about it for 0.2 seconds before deciding against it (i was rooting for connor)

trevorzegras it was the stats that sold her

_quinnhughes @/trevorzegras that sounds about right (@/yourusername why are you on a one-sided first name basis with him? and why is draisaitl "mr. leon draisaitl?")

yourusername @_quinnhughes (1. to irk you <3 2. i fear him)

_quinnhughes (that sounds about right)

trevorzegras @_quinnhughes (i’m just glad she didn't tag him because knowing her, he'd somehow see it)

yourusername @/trevorzegras i can still do that

trevorzegras @/yourusername parentheses means it's a private conversation, y/n!

_quinnhughes @/yourusername nosy much?

yourusername @_quinnhughes @/trevorzegras penalties for being annoying! get into your respective bathtubs!

jackhughes HA

yourusername @/jackhughes you, too, bitch

jackhughes @/yourusername i didn't do shit!

yourusername @/jackhughes you can't even prove that! i’m taking precautions

user9 FUCK QUINN LOOKS SO GOOD

user82 days since quinn and trevor last got a sissy penalty: 0

_eliaspettersson you forgot to mention that i scored the gwg

yourusername i didn't want you to outshine quintin in my caption because he's whiney

_eliaspettersson that's fair

_quinnhughes @/yourusername HEY

yourusername @_eliaspettersson see what i mean?

_eliaspettersson so whiney

_quinnhughes i feel attacked

yourusername @_quinnhughes trust your feelings

user96 up next: a captain on captain fist fight

yourusername @_quinnhughes PLEASE

_quinnhughes @/yourusername NO

yourusername @_quinnhughes :(

user17 quinn's face in the fourth pic 😭

jackhughes @_quinnhughes you spent way too much time with sissy this summer

_quinnhughes no, i spent way too much time watching you two have mma fights in every living room in every house we were in

yourusername @_quinnhughes don't act like you didn't also fight with jacky boy and lukey moosey

jackhughes @_quinnhughes we're just looking up to our big brother and doing what you do! you're our hero

yourusername @/jackhughes i mean... mine is stromer but ig quinn is a close second

lhughes_06 @_quinnhughes hypocrite

_quinnhughes @/jackhughes @/yourusername @.lhughes_06 i’m disowning all of you

user40 THAT'S MY CAPTAIN

_alexturcottte a win for quinn hughes nation !

yourusername a HUGE one!

_quinnhughes you two are something else

_alexturcotte @/yourusername OMG QUINN HUGHES RESPONDED TO ME😭

yourusername @_alexturcotte AHHHH CONGRATULATIONS!!

trevorzegras why don't i get this type of hype?

_quinnhughes @/trevorzegras because this gag started when turcs lived with us

yourusername @_quinnhughes don't try to make him feel better that's my job

yourusername @/trevorzegras lexi and i don't like you that much

trevorzegras @/yourusername what happened to your degree in being nice?

yourusername @/trevorzegras i got a minor in silly goosing! this is me applying it

user23 "hyman was flailing about" he really was😭

trevorzegas i'm coming for you, hughesy

yourusername how cute and ominous🥰🫶

_quinnhughes in your dreams, zegras

yourusername omg soon i’ll have BOTH of those last names!!

trevorzegras @/yourusername even later now though

yourusername @/trevorzegras I WANT IT TO NOT LOOK LIKE WE'RE HAVING A SHOTGUN WEDDING! plus my new gang besties get to come to our wedding now that it's gonna be in the summer

tydellandrea53 HELL YEAH WE DO!

_quinnhughes @/yourusername you don't have a set date yet how did you invite the rest of your gang?

yourusername @_quinnhughes i said "hey wy, ty, and harls, wanna come to my wedding that's now in july?" and they said "yes of course, princess, we'd love nothing more than to attend the best day of your life!"

_wyattjohnston @_quinnhughes word for word

_quinnhughes @/trevorzegras did she cry? did you record it?

trevorzegras @_quinnhughes she's somehow normal now that they're friends

yourusername @/trevorzegras we're more than friends. we're gang members.

user51 DID THEY JUST SAY THEY'RE MOVING THE WEDDING?!

yourusername we did! it'll be late july <3 i want to be able to fit into a wedding dress without having a baby bump! i’m growing!

user72 quinn WILL fight this year, trust

lhughes_06 sissy, you should go back to having weekly pyramids where you rank us

_quinnhughes please no

colecaufield PLEASE YES

slknight35 oh my god i forgot about that

trevorzegras @/slknight35 you were always at the top how could you forget?

slknight35 @/trevorzegras i didn't get belittled

jackhughes @/slknight35 so unfair

yourusername @/jackhughes you're just salty because you were always at the bottom

jackhughes @/yourusername I NEVER DID SHIT

_alexturcotte hughesy's having war flashbacks over here

colecaufield @_alexturcotte some of the best jack vs y/n matchups happened on pyramid nights

slknight35 @/colecaufield my personal favorite was when quinn came home and got hit with a pillow that sissy was throwing at jack

lhughes_06 @/slknight35 you picked that over the time they were whipping each other with towels?

trevorzegras that was a good night

jackhughes @/trevorzegras it really was

yourusername i'll think about it...😈

colecaufield YES

_eliaspettersson added this post to their story

[kikiskeysgame]

Kiki’s End of Game Summary (03\03\2022)

Goals 1st Period Sam Lafferty [2:34] Assisted by Philipp Kurashev and Ryan Carpenter Leon Draisaitl [14:35] (Oilers) [Power play goal] Assisted by Connor McDavid and Tyson Barrie Patrick Kane [16:55] Assisted by Dylan Strome and Caleb Jones Evander Kane [19:26] (Oilers) Assisted by Leon Draisaitl and Darnell Nurse 3rd Period Dominik Kubalik [2:49] Unassisted Zach Hyman (Oilers) [19:10] Unassisted Overtime Alex DeBrincat [2:23] [Power play goal] Assisted by Patrick Kane and Seth Jones Game Statistics Chicago Shots on goal: 32 Faceoff percentage: 40.0% Power play: 1\2 Penalty minutes: 10 Hits: 32 Blocks: 21 Giveaways: 10 Takeaways: 11 Oilers Shots on goal: 32 Faceoff percentage: 60.0% Power play: 1\4 Penalty minutes: 6 Hits: 23 Blocks: 16 Giveaways: 8   Takeaways: 11 Shots on goal per period Blackhawks 1st Period: 8 2nd Period: 12 3rd Period: 10 Overtime: 2 Oilers 1st Period: 11 2nd Period:  5 3rd Period: 15 Overtime: 0 Goaltender Statistics Marc-Andre Fleury [winning goaltender] Saves: 29 Shots against: 32 Save percentage: .906 Goals against: 4 Mikko Koskanen (Oilers) Saves: 28 Shots against: 32 Save percentage: .875 Goals against: 4 3 Stars of the Game 1.) Alex DeBrincat 2.) Patrick Kane 3.) Sam Lafferty Kiki's "5 Chosen Blackhawks Stars of the Game" 1.) Alex DeBrincat (scored his 30th goal of the season and the overtime winning goal; named 1st star of the game) 2.) Patrick Kane (had a multi-point goal with his 17th goal and 38th assist of the season on Alex DeBrincat's overtime winning goal; named 2nd star of the game) 3.) Sam Lafferty (scored his 2nd goal of the season; named 3rd star of the game) 4.) Caleb Jones (got his 6th assist of the season on Patrick Kane's goal) 5.) Dominik Kubalik (scored his 11th goal of the season)

[alanm00ch]

Western Conference Finals Game 1 Recap

Well, holy *CRAP*, game 1 was a gauntlet for the Avalanche and Oilers. Where do we begin? How I give you the final score and then *how* we got here.

COL 8 - EDM 6

Okay, HOW did we get here? Well, here’s a highlights video that will show you how we got to that ridiculous score. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSpqH3DYfxo&t=1s Did you watch it? Yes? Awesome. Stick around and I’ll tell ya what you saw! No, you’d rather read me breaking down all the action and THEN watch it? OKAY! Let’s do it then! At 06:00 PM Mountain Time, the first puck drop of the Western Conference Finals would get the game under way and the attack was on for both teams.  Shots being handed left and right but no team could score a goal, that was until Yamamoto went end to end, and then he would pass the puck to Evander Kane from the wing.  With a slight breakaway, Evander Kane scores the opening goal of the game with 14:56 seconds to go in the first period making it a 1-0 Oilers lead.  And oh boy, once that goal was scored, the hammer was dropped. The Avalanche would immediately launch a response to the Oilers goal by launching an all out attack that started with Byram on the Avalanche side of the ice, and it ended with a 2 on 1 offensive advantage where Alex Newhook found J.T. Compher to score the 1st goal for the Avalanche with 14:20 to go in the period.  With 5:00 to go in the first, the Avalanche would launch another strike again, this time, it started with Makar behind the Avalanche net. It ended with Nathan MacKinnon flying in to pick up the puck in the offensive zone and burying it with 4:50 to go.

with 36.8 to go, the Oilers started with the puck in their own end with Kulak finding Connor McDavid on the wing and he does what he does best : Connor McDavid things. A no look pass to Draisitl, Driasitil hands it back to McDavid, McDavid passes it to Kulak, Kulak send the puck up to Hyman, and Hyman gets the puck behind Darcy Keumper and in the net for a goal and makes it a 2-2 game with 22.3 seconds to go. The tie game was short lived as 8.7 seconds later, Cale Makar blasted down the ice and buries the 3-2 go ahead. This goal was challenged by the Oilers coach for off sides, and it seemed like it did go off sides and would 100% be called back, but after review, the goal stood as called and Makar would officially give the Avs a 3-2 lead leaving the first period as no other goals were scored despite the Avalanche being on the power play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVCuzEiIDXA This video gives an in depth explanation as to why the Makar goal stood as a good goal, but the ruling should’ve been off sides and even I say that as an Avalanche fan. The Avalanche got gift wrapped 1 goal thanks to the NHL being the NHL and wanting the Oilers to get screwed at every corner (according to Edmonton fans) and the rule book being well... confusing. And the Avs on top of the go ahead goal from Makar standing as called, now have a power play that carries over into the 2nd period to go along with it. Speaking of the 2nd period, with 19:39 to go in the period, Cale Makar starts an attack in the Avalanche zone and skates down center ice, passes the puck to Rantenen, Rantenen passes to Nazam Kadri, Kadri shoots, shot blocked, BUT WAIT, Kadri has the rebound AND HE SCOOOOOOOOOOOOORES!!! YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU BETCHA!!! THE KADRI MAN CAN! With 19:28 to go, Kadri scores a power play goal and the Avalanche are up 4-2 after drilling home 2 unanswered goals in this game.

And the Oilers rolled back with a response of their own : with 17:01 left in the period, the Oilers start a play in their zone with Pulijuarvi stealing the puck from the Avalanche and taking a shot down ice, Keumper makes the block, but the puck made an unlucky bounce into open area of ice and McLeod was there to take the rebound and score the goal, making it a 4-3 game for the Avalanche. In a tightly contested game, the Avs had a 1 goal advantage and there was still a lot of game left to go. And the Avs would not take that goal lying down.

Nathan MacKinnon makes a nice backhand pass to Mikko Rantenen, who just came off the bench, and Rantenen buries it top shelf With 15:20 to go in the period,  and gives the Avalanche a 2 goal lead once again with a score of 5-3. And the scoring onslaught from the Avalanche was on.  Devon Towes takes a shot has it denied. Towes picks up the puck, passes it to Cale Makar, and Makar lets it fly on the one-timer and puts a laser shot into the net with 13:40 to go in the period, making it 6-3. Late in the 2nd period, battle for the puck along the boards in the Avalanche zone is won by the Avs defender Jack Johnson.  Johnson pokes it to Logan O’Connor, who flies on the wing side, makes a pass to Andrew Cogliano and Cogliano scores a Coglion-GOAL. And thanks to Cogliano’s goal, the Avalanche make it 7-3 with a mere 3:40 left in the period.

Lost in the Avalanche goal frenzy was Darcey Keumper skating off the ice due to blurry vision with Pavel Francouz coming in to the game to finish what Keumper started while we all wish Keumper a speedy recovery and hope he’ll be alright. With 3:24 to go in the 2nd, there was a face off in the Avalanche zone. Face off was won by McDavid for the Oilers, Draistl takes a shot, blocked by Francouz, it’s still in the Avs zone and the Avalanche can’t clear it. Draisitl still has the puck, passes it to McDavid, and Connor McDavid puts the puck in the Avs net to make a 7-4 hockey game with 3:09 left in the 2nd period. And that goal would begin the Oilers 3 goal counter attack to the Avalanche goal flurry.

In the 3rd period, the Oilers scoring attack begins at 16:44 to go in regulation as the Bouchard begins the attack with the puck on the Avalanche side of the ice. Bouchard decides he’s going to pass it to Keith, who passes it right back to him. Bouchard decides to take a shot, and the shot is blocked by Francouz, but it was sent right back to Bouchard, so he shoots again, puck bounces off one of the Avalanche skaters, goes wide and finds its way behind the Avalanche net after bouncing off another Avalanche skater, and Kassain was there to pick it up.  He comes from behind the net, passes it to Derek Ryan. He (Ryan) shoots the puck and gets it behind Francouz to make this a 7-5 game with 16:32 to go and the Oilers still weren’t done yet. Another Oilers attack starts up on the power play with Tyson Barrie taking a shot with 7:40 to go in the game, shot blocked and sent away by Francouz,  Nugent-Hopkins picks up the loose puck and sends it behind the net where McDavid picks it up.  He (McDavid) passes it to Hyman who just so happens to be in front of the net.  Hyman winds up, fires, and DENIED BY PAVEL FRANCOUZ!!! CALM DOWN, AVS FANS, BECAUSE FRANKIE SAYS RELAX! That would be short lived relaxation as the puck was sent back to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.  Nugent-Hopkins passes the puck to Connor McDavid, McDavid makes a quick pass to Leon Draistil, Draisitl gives it back to no. 97 McDavid and he (McDavid) gives right back to Draisitl. Draistil makes a beautifully timed pass back to Nugent-Hopkins, who puts in the net behind Francouz with 7:24 to go in the 3rd period.  It was now a 7-6 game, Avs lead by 1.  The 3rd period rolls on with no scoring from either team and Edmonton pulling their goalie late into the period.  With 61 seconds to go in the 3rd period and only down by 1 goal, the Oilers pulled their goalie and left the empty.  With an extra attacker on, Edmonton was trying to tie the game. Time winding down and the Avs on the attack with mere seconds to go, Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog finds his way to the Oilers side of the ice with the puck, shoots and HE SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORES! CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN, PUT THIS GAME AWAY FOR THE AVS WITH 21.4 SECONDS TO GO ON AN EMPTY NET GOAL! Time would expire and there’d be no more scoring. The Avalanche take game 1 of the Western Conference finals by a score of 8-6 with game 2 tonight at the Ball Arena in Denver. The Colorado Avalanche look for a commanding 2-0 series lead before the series heads to Edmonton on Saturday and Monday for games 3 and 4.

[assistantcaptainmitchmarner]

1-9, 16, 20-24 for the hockey asks! -andersavior

thank youuuu so much!! @andersavior

1. fav team: toronto maple leafs

2. 2nd fav team: the penguins (fun fact i’ve been a fan since i was six, mainly due to fleury)

3. team you love to hate: boston bruins and sometimes the flyers bc they’re my mum’s favourite team

4. team you just hate: bl*ckh*wks

5. best team in the league in your opinion? i’m gonna say the caps, personally

6. top 3 players on your team:  Marner, Matthews, Andersen, in no particular order

7. top 3 players NOT on your team: devan dubnyk, alex ovechkin, connor mcdavid

8. 3 players you like on teams you can’t stand: marchand, trevor van riemsdyk, wayne simmonds

9. players you hate on teams you like: andrew shaw (i’m getting over it, he just needs to prove a few more things), dennis wideman, anyone who can’t grow facial hair but decides it’s a good idea anyway

16. best goaltender: why do you need to hurt me like this????? i really want to say andersen or price or fleury bc i love them with all my heart but in reality, devan dubnyk

20. most overrated: yikes, okay, umm this hurts my heart but i’m ginna say price because i love him and he’s fantastic but i wouldn’t say he’s the best in the league (wow okay that hurt, i swear i love him, i have a price shirt and everything but i just don’t think he’s the best in the league)

21. most underrated: zach hyman

22. prettiest goal you ever saw: ah man, ask the kid with the terrible memory (jkjk it’s cool) i don’t think this counts as pretty but matthews’ ot goal in the winter classic bc damn it didn’t even look like he shot the puck

23. worst/best hit you ever saw: this isn’t a particular hit but i love it when players are launched into either their bench or the other team’s bench (+ the teams reactions, like their team will help and either pull him in and change or push him back out, whereas the other team treats him like he has cooties)

24. who on your team is… i just did this one here!!

>

[paradoxicalca]

[OC] Cody Ceci vs. Nikita Zaitsev: A Comparative Analysis

The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators completed a trade on July 1st. The pieces were the following:TOR ReceivesOTT ReceivesCody CeciNikita ZaitsevBen HarpurConnor BrownAaron LuchukMichael Carcone2020 3rd Round Pick-Leaf fans were upset that we got Ceci and Sens fans were upset that they acquired Zaitsev. Both of these two players received a ton of criticism from our respective fan bases over the last few years. Ignoring the rest of the pieces in the deal for a moment, I decided to take a look at Zaitsev and Ceci’s performance over the last couple years, with a focus on last year, to compare the main pieces being moved in this deal.Analysis2019 Base StatsPlayerGPAOTIGAA1PointsPPPG/60P/60iCF/60relCF%relGF%relxGF%Sh%PDOZSRQoTQoCZaitsev8120:2831111400.130.539.55-2.81-8.92-0.917.88%100.370.4228.3929.16Ceci7422:34719112610.260.9210.6-1.81-2.19-0.848.23%99.380.4427.3429.12Before I continue, let me say that I don’t think that either of these guys are legitimate top-pairing defenders or anything along that line. I think both guys are serviceable NHL defenceman who have been given really, really tough minutes that make them look worse than they are. With that being said, I’d make an argument that Ceci was the better player between the two last year when you look at most of their metrics.Ceci produced more offence by a fairly wide margin. He scored 7 goals to Zaitsev’s 3 and doubled Zaitsev’s /60 goal rate. Ceci also had 8 more assists, had a significantly higher /60 point rate, and had 10 more primary assists. As a side note, Zaitsev had 1 primary assist all year and that’s when he hit a camera clearing the puck on Hyman’s ENG in Tampa - it’s almost impressive how awful that stat is. Ceci received very little Power Play time (scoring 1 point) and had a slightly lower PDO (indicating he was a little less lucky than Z) so those aren’t excuses that Zaitsev defenders can hide behind to explain these discrepancies.People who argue that Zaitsev is the better player would likely point to his difficult deployment but, the thing is, if there is one player that got it as bad as Zaitsev in terms of difficult minutes, that player is Cody Ceci. Zaitsev received slightly harder zone starts and faced slightly harder competition but Ceci played with much worse teammates while also being asked to shut down other team's top lines. In addition, Ceci played 22:34/game. That ranked 42nd in the NHL last year. The five guys behind him in that category: Josh Morrissey, Justin Faulk, Keith Yandle, Brandon Montour, and Patrick Kane. The five guys ahead of him in that category: Erik Gustafsson, Leon Draisaitl, PK Subban, Victor Hedman, and Connor McDavid. Ceci is not in that class and Ottawa asked way too much of this guy. They ran him into the ground and if the Leafs can scale Ceci’s minutes back a little bit and shelter him away from top lines, I would expect his numbers to jump by a decent amount next year. I’m fairly confident Mike Babcock would have a stroke if he watched a Rielly-Barrie pairing in their own zone so it wouldn’t surprise me to see Muzz-Barrie take the top lines and Rielly pair with Ceci where Ceci will be the stay at home guy to let Mo do what he does best.When you compare the two, Cody Ceci had more of a positive impact on the on-ice results relative to his teammates last year than Nikita Zaitsev. Ceci’s stats were atrocious but so were the stats of most of the Ottawa Senators and it’s hard to succeed when you are playing with a lot of borderline AHL guys. Zaitsev is getting compared to better players in the rel calculations but Zaitsev’s stats were not good and he was playing on a far superior team with much better talent around him. Both guys received extremely difficult minutes when compared to their teammates, but in the end, Ceci had more of a positive impact on possession for the Sens than Zaitsev did for the Leafs.Most Common Linemates/OpponentsTo give people an idea of the difference in talent we are talking about when comparing Zaitsev’s linemates to Ceci’s linemates, here are their five most common linemates and the amount of time they played with them last year (I also included their 2nd most common d partner):Zaitsev linemateTOI withCeciTOIJake Gardiner811:30Maxime Lajoie579:24Patrick Marleau410:57Zack Smith376:48John Tavares408:24Chris Tierney363:04Mitch Marner401:37Magnus Paajarvi257:49Kasperi Kapanen389:24Mark Stone336:31Jake Muzzin296:43Thomas Chabot247:16Cody Ceci was asked to play 22+ minutes a night against other team's top lines and on most nights he was paired with rookies. I understand Chabot is great but not many d-men are succeeding in that type of role when your three most common forward linemates are Smith, Tierney, and Paajarvi. I can’t overstate how ridiculous it was to expect Ceci to succeed in his role last year. At least Zaitsev was given skilled forwards, an aging Marleau aside, and two partners that have a history of raising their partner’s play in Gardiner and Muzzin. The only good thing Ceci had going for him on his team, Mark Stone, was traded to Vegas. I don’t think Ceci is a great hockey player but I think he’s unfairly dumped on a lot of the time and I’m cautiously optimistic that he can look competent if Babcock is able to recognize that he can be effective if he plays 19 mins a night against 2nd lines.To get the full picture, here are their 10 most common opponents (forwards only) from last year. Since they played in the same division, this kinda gives you an idea of what they were asked to do against their opponents in terms of line matching.RankZaitsev OpponentCeci Opponent1PanarinMatthews2DuboisStamkos3BarkovKucherov4HuberdeauNyqusit5AtkinsonJT Miller6Sam ReinhartPhil Kessel7KrejciAthanasiou8StamkosNylander9DadanovJohnsson10KucherovKrejciAs you can see, there are some common players between the two and both were asked to cover top guys for their teams. Ceci was asked to do this, for the most part, beside rookies while getting an average of 2 more minutes of ice time per night. I get that Zaitsev received some tough deployment under Babcock but Ceci was a different level and it’d take a truly special player to succeed in his role last year.Transition StatsFinally, I just wanted to quickly take a look at Ceci and Zaitsev’s transition numbers both from last year and over the last three years.Last yearLast year was a really rough year for both guys. Both guys put up sub-par shot contribution numbers and I’ll talk about that below. Zaitsev put up solid entry defense numbers but could not move the puck up the ice to save his life. Ceci was horrible at defending zone entries last year and put up some mediocre entry and exit numbers. Both guys need to improve on their transition game in order to become effective top 4 guys in this league.Last three yearsWhen you look at the three-year sample, Zaitsev still maintains an edge in entry defenses but the gap isn’t as large as it was last year. Ceci’s entry and exit numbers were very poor last year but he actually has a history of being pretty decent at carrying the puck up the ice and he might be able to regain that form in Toronto. Both guys have never been great in terms of shot contributions but that is expected when you are put in the role that they both have filled for the past few years. I don’t know if either will be taken out of that role next year but if you can give them some easier zone starts and play them against more appropriate competition then I would expect their numbers to bump up a bit.ConclusionIn the end, trading Zaitsev and getting out of the rest of his contract is a major win for the Leafs in my book even if that means taking on Cody Ceci for a year. I believe that Ceci can fill a lesser role on this team if he’s given an opportunity to do so and even if he fails, it’s only a one year experiment. In the end, I wish Zaitsev luck with the Sens but I actually don’t mind the idea of taking on Ceci for a year as long as Babcock doesn’t overplay him like he did with Zaitsev and/or Hainsey. Hopefully this trade can work out for both sides.Stats are from corsica, Natural Stat Trick, and the screenshots are from CJ Turtoro’s comparison tool [OC] Cody Ceci vs. Nikita Zaitsev: A Comparative Analysis Source