Throughout the 2023-24 NHL season, there was an ever-growing crescendo in Oil Country that the Edmonton Oilers needed to improve at 2RD, a position then occupied by veteran rearguard Cody Ceci. It seemed like everybody and their cat jumped aboard the “upgrade Ceci” train.
A simple Twitter search of the words “upgrade+Ceci” reveals how those two words seemingly became joined at the hip with literally hundreds, possibly thousands of occurrences (I lost interest in counting after a while, but there were a lot).
History tells us such an upgrade did not occur at the deadline, other than the Oilers acquiring veteran righty Troy Stecher and immediately installing him in the press box. They continued to lean on the same sextet that played all season long, Cody Ceci most definitely among them. History also tells us the Oil went all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals before dropping a 2-1 heartbreaker in the decisive game.
Come this summer, though, and those fans got their wish, or at least part of it. Ceci was in fact traded to San Jose Sharks along with a third-round pick for a much younger right-shot defender in Ty Emberson. Among other things, the exchange produced a salary cap savings of $2.3 million which helped make the Oilers cap-compliant.
The question remains: has the squad actually upgraded at 2RD?
What we know for sure is that the four returnees can be written in pen, with Mattias Ekholm, Darnell Nurse, and Brett Kulak continuing to lock down the left side and Evan Bouchard the top righty without a throw.
Four players who played in the NHL last season are vying for that second-pairing role and another open spot at 3RD, vacated when Vincent Desharnais signed in Vancouver on Jul 01. The “lucky loser” may well be in line for the #7 role, filling the role that the also-departed Philip Broberg had for the first 2½ rounds of the playoffs. Seems unlikely there’ll be room on the roster for another.
- Troy Stecher, acquired by trade, then re-signed Jul 01 to a 2-year extension at $787,500 per season
- Josh Brown, signed as a free agent on Jul 01 to a 3-year deal at $1,000,000
- Ty Emberson, acquired by trade on Aug. 18 with an existing 1-year pact at $950,000
- Travis Dermott, brought to camp on a Professional Tryout (PTO)
All four find themselves in the top eight early in training camp, paired up as follows:
…which perhaps gives us some early clues as to how the coaching staff rates them going in.
First though, a moment to consider the departed 2RD. This is the player that someone on that bullet-point list is going to replace.
Cody Ceci
Ceci arrived in Edmonton on the first day of free agency in 2021, himself brought on to replace Adam Larsson who had signed with the expansionist Seattle Kraken just a few days earlier. He came a little cheaper than Larsson at $3.25 million for four years, 27 years old with 547 NHL games already under the hood. He’d averaged 20 minutes a night over all those games, and continued to do just that during all three seasons in Edmonton as the #4 overall defenceman. Highly durable, he missed just 9 games over his 3 seasons as an Oiler with the most serious being an enforced 4-game absence when he tested positive for COVID his first December here.
A very popular teammate, he hit a goal-scoring drought in the middle year, otherwise produced fairly consistently chipping in a point every 3 or 4 games. 64 of his 68 points in Edmonton came at even strength, the other 4 on the penalty kill. Powerplay? No chancee, Mr. Whalen.
He put up a decent plus every season although in truth he was a break-even player at even strength. He was +14 for shorthanded goals and +26/-8 with the other goalie pulled, quirks in the plus/minus system which largely benefit the defence-first player, which Cody Ceci most assuredly was.
He took surprisingly few penalties for a guy whose first order of business was getting in the way, and was a mainstay of the PK. His penalty-killing acumen came to a focus in the 2024 playoffs when Ceci played 54 minutes on the unit in 24 games, during which time the opposition never scored a single goal. Obviously, the 1.000 save percentage behind him helped, but Ceci was a solid contributor to a unit that had a brilliant post season.
Anyway, that all needed to be upgraded, apparently, and for certain it had to be down-costed, at least in the short term. So, who steps up and takes Cody Ceci’s 20 minutes a game?
Ty Emberson
I’ll list him first since he was the guy who came the other way in the trade, moreover he got the first crack at the spot alongside Nurse. He’s the youngest by some distance, just 24 years of age. Originally drafted by Arizona Coyotes at #73 overall in 2018, he played three seasons at the D factory know as U. of Wisconsin before joining the Tucson Roadrunners for a full season. In the summer of 2022 he was dealt to New York Rangers for experienced defender Patrik Nemeth plus a pair of second-round picks, a healthy return.
He played a year with Rangers’ AHL affiliate Hartford Wolfpack under Kris Knoblauch with fine results (69 GP, 7-20-27, +17). The next season, his waiver exemption expired, and when the Rangers tried to slide him through at the end of camp he was claimed by San Jose, with whom he spent the entire 2023-24. Alas, just 30 games on the ice due to injury issues, missing four separate chunks of time according to Rotowire which is somewhat concerning.
In the 30 games he did play, Emberson was pretty effective, especially against the backdrop of the woeful team that employed him. He played 18:33 per game, not quite the 20 minutes that virtually defines a second-pairing D but not far off. His boxcars of 1-9-10 were in line with Ceci’s rates, fairly impressive considering he wasn’t exactly making outlet passes to McDavid and Draisaitl. His -4 looks pedestrian but shines like a diamond on a team that scored 180 goals and allowed 326, including a wretched +119/-226 at 5v5.
For sure, Emberson’s 44% goal share at 5v5 (16 for, 20 against in 500 minutes) stands out on this PuckIQ chart, which clusters the rest of the primary d-men at 37.5% or worse. Moreover, Emberson’s position at the high end of the vertical axis reflects that site’s assessment that he played against tougher competition than those mates. Upper right is the place to be on this graphic.
The other counted stat that stands out from Emberson’s rookie season: 94 hits, more than 3 per game. That’s essentially double the established rate of Ceci, who played more of a contain game. Not saying either style is better, but I do expect Emberson to be more aggressive about breaking the cycle.
The Arizona trio
Whereas Emberson’s first NHL roots were in the Arizona system, the other three defenders now vying for jobs in Edmonton all played for Arizona last season. All three played around 50 games, which is to say more than Emberson but a whole lot less than Ceci.
None of the three was a big scorer. All ranked outside the Coyotes top four in both GP and ATOI, which follow the profile of d-men in the third and fourth pairings. Which to be frank, is where they project in Edmonton, indeed where they have been deployed in training camp. (Not shown here are the 7 games Stecher played for the Oilers after the deadline (0-2-2, +4 in 16:00 a night), which are suggestive of a smaller but more successful role as a 6-7.)
As teammates on the same defence corps, they were scattered all over the similar PuckIQ chart previously shown for Emberson, again focusing on actual goal share.
Dermott played the tougher opponents but with by far the worst on-ice goals results, just +19/-35 in 707 minutes at 5v5. Stecher was somewhat sheltered with a way better +28/-24 goal share, while Brown faced by far the softest opposition in by far the fewest minutes, managing to saw them off at +33/-33, right on par with a Coyotes club that was +171/-171 at 5v5 on the season.
Josh Brown
With that backdrop we’ll look at each individual more briefly, starting with the guy who is currently lining up with Kulak. Brown, 30, brings 290 games of NHL experience to Edmonton, his fifth NHL stop. His average ice-time of 14:24 fairly screams “third pairing”, indeed “#6 d-man”. When he plays, that is. With zero seasons of 70 GP and just one of 60, the bread crumbs suggest he’s spent plenty of time in the press box. In none of those seasons did he average as much as 16 minutes a night.
A giant of a man at 6’5, 220, he ranked second on the ‘yotes in PIM with 75 in 51 games, a little up from his career average of about 1 per game. His 112 hits ranked second among Arizona defenders, roughly double the per-game rate of Stecher and Dermott.
To all appearances his addition was more to replace Desharnais than Ceci. Hard to see him as an upgrade there either, except in one important respect. Desharnais is set to make $2 million a year in Vancouver, Brown half of that in Edmonton. The three-year term of that pact is a bit eye-popping, but may help shelter him against waiver claims should the Oilers need to make a bit of cap space at some point.
Troy Stecher
Onn the other hand, Stecher appears to be “replacing” himself, or at least set to fill the same role he was brought in to do last trade deadline. He too is 30, a journeyman with an impressive 494 big-league NHL games to his credit, including those 7 with the Oilers, his sixth NHL team. Small and scrappy at 5’10, 184 lbs, he’s not one to shy away from a puck battle and is reasonably effective at moving the disc.
Not once in his eight seasons has he averaged 20 minutes a night, just missing that mark by a hair a couple times with Vancouver at the start of his career. Since then the minutes have gradually tumbled into the 15-18 minute range. A long, established history as a depth defender. Is it realistic to expect him to step into the top four?
Travis Dermott
He’s the oddball in this set, the only one of the d-men examined here to shoot left. He’s also the only one without a contract, having recently accepted a PTO to try out for the Oil. Once an up-and-coming NHL rearguard, a concussion suffered in 2022-23 may have knocked his career right off the rails.
Still just 27, the 6’0 202-lb Dermott has 329 NHL games to his credit though never more than 64 in a season. Never more than 17 minutes a night in any of those seasons, either. Not only does he not project as a second pairing guy, he’s a long shot to make the third pair either. His ability to play both sides of the sheet might help him win the #7 job, though he’s in tough against 7 NHL d-men with actual contracts.
Other options
It probably wasn’t a good sign for Philip Kemp when Stan Bowman didn’t even mention his name at his avail the other day, jumping straight from the guys named above to players who might still be available to sign to future options nearer the trade deadline. Perhaps Kemp’s skating is truly a fatal flaw, but surely he deserves a decent chance to show his wares during the preseason. During his three-plus seasons in Bakersfield, the 6’3 202-lb Kemp has become an ever-more-reliable stay-at-home rearguard with occasional flashes of offence. He’s been a consistent outscorer every year, now a combined +33 in 192 AHL games. The NHL? 1 game, playing the wing. It would be nice to see the 25-year-old get a chance at some point.
Connor Carrick is another righty who came up through the US Development Program. The 30-year-old has amassed 242 NHL games over the years, but just 1 of them came in the past 3 years. In that same time he has played 192 AHL contests, and that’s likely where he’s ticketed this year.
Max Wanner projects into this mix down the road, but I expect the aggressive young righty will get more AHL time while the more veteran defenders get their chance in the first half of the season at minimum.
The last, main option
Try to get by for the opening months, leaning heavily on the four returning mainstays to carry the load, with Emberson best positioned to get a long look at 2RD. Stay as far under the cap as possible to accrue some space that can be used at the deadline. To that end, don’t be surprised if a guy like Brown gets sent out at some point in favour of a mate making $200k less like Stecher, Carrick or even Kemp.
Come the deadline, use whatever space has been accrued to target an actual upgrade at 2RD. This observer doesn’t see one there just yet.
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