Cody Ceci has built a strange little NHL reputation: the kind of player fans swear they see as invisible or worse, and teams keep paying anyway.
That disconnect has followed him through stops with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers, where the eye test never quite lined up with the minutes he kept getting. In Toronto, plenty of fans came away convinced he was the worst player on the ice.
The advanced numbers didn’t do him many favors either. And still, whenever he reached free agency or landed on the trade market, somebody eventually stepped up with a real commitment.
The latest example is his four-year contract with the Los Angeles Kings, carrying a $4.5 million AAV and running through 2028-29. So what exactly are teams buying when they sign Cody Ceci?
Start with the basics. He’s a 6-foot-3, right-shot defenceman who almost never misses time, and that matters a lot more to coaches and front offices than fans sometimes want to admit.
For more than a decade, he’s filled a top-four role or handled heavy third-pair minutes. He blocks shots, takes defensive-zone starts, and usually gives a team something useful on the penalty kill.
If a coach wants a player who can eat minutes, kill penalties, and make the simple safe play, Ceci fits the brief.
Around the league, that’s the word that tends to follow him: steady. Not flashy.
Not the guy lighting up highlight clips. Just dependable enough that teams trust him with the boring, unglamorous work that keeps a lineup from coming apart.
But the downside is real, too. When Ceci is on the ice, the possession and expected-goals numbers have often sat in the average-to-below-average range, especially when the competition gets stronger.
He doesn’t bring much offense, and when he’s asked to do more than low-risk, shutdown-style defending, the results can get ugly. That’s part of why he frustrated so many fans in Toronto and Edmonton.
His mistakes tend to be the kind people notice.
His first season in Los Angeles, 2025-26, followed that same pattern. He played all 82 games, finished with 9 points, and posted a -10 rating while still contributing solidly on the penalty kill. The Kings used him more like a third-pair option, and the underlying numbers were mixed.
That’s really the Cody Ceci story in a nutshell. He lives in the middle ground.
He’s valuable for the things he does well: availability, size, the right shot, penalty-kill work, and a low-drama style coaches trust. But the parts of the game fans and analytics tend to spotlight-pushing play, generating offense, controlling possession-usually don’t pop the same way.
So he can look like a smart depth piece to one team and an overpaid headache to another. Either way, he keeps landing contracts. And somehow, that keeps being the part that surprises people most.
In Other News...
Kings Still Have One Huge Elias Pettersson Question
Elias Petterssons offseason presence in Los Angeles was enough to get the rumor mill spinning around the Kings again, especially with the club still looking for help down the middle. Any team with eyes on a top-six center is going to get mentioned in that kind of speculation, and Petterssons name naturally carries weight given the skill set and the fit he would represent if Vancouver ever entertained moving him.
For now, though, the noise appears to be louder than the actual market. The Kings still want to add at center, and Petterssons recent dip in production could keep him on their radar if the Canucks ever decide to listen, but there is no sign of an imminent deal. His time skating in Los Angeles was tied to the offseason and his wifes connection to the area, not some secret team session that might have hinted at a breakthrough. [Read more 🡒]
Alex Turcotte Faces A Big Kings Test Under Peter Laviolette
Training camp is about to become a major proving ground for the Kings, and few players have more at stake than Alex Turcotte. Under new coach Peter Laviolette, the team will be sorting through important roster decisions, and that gives younger players a real chance to push their way into bigger roles if they can make a strong impression early.
Turcotte enters the fall with a clear assignment: show more offense to go with the defensive work that has already made him useful. For a club trying to identify who can handle larger minutes and fit into Laviolettes plans, this is the kind of opportunity that can change a season before it even starts. [Read more 🡒]