The Penguins' third defense pairing heading into next season seems likely to be Mike Matheson, acquired in the Patric Hornqvist trade, and free agent signing Cody Ceci.
They replace Jack Johnson, who was bought out of his contract and signed with the Rangers, and Justin Schultz, who signed with the Capitals in free agency.
How do Matheson and Ceci stack up against Johnson and Schultz? Let's break it down.
CODY CECI
When the Penguins signed Ceci, he described himself as a two-way defenseman whose offensive game was lacking last season.
"I kind of got away from (the offensive side) a bit last year," Ceci said of his game. "I'm just looking to add that offensive side back a little more. Pretty steady defensively, play hard, so that'll be there. I'm just trying to add a little more of the two-way game back like I had previously in my career as well."
Ceci, 26, skated in 56 games with the Maple Leafs last season, playing on the second defense pairing with Morgan Reilly. He scored one goal and seven assists. That's quite the drop offensively from the 2018-19 season in Ottawa in which he scored seven goals and 19 assists in 74 games.
Jim Rutherford suggested to Dave Molinari after the signing that the Penguins could use Ceci in a way that gets that two-way game back.
"He’s a guy who can play the game both ways," Rutherford said. "It depends on what system he’s in. We think putting him in the right situation, trying to give him the best chance to succeed, that he can help us."
Criticisms of Ceci before signing with the Penguins were that he didn't do much to drive play offensively, and that his defensive game wasn't strong enough to make up for the lack of offense.
A statistic that doesn't suggest that Ceci's drop in offense could be fixed with a new system is how often he just missed the net. Ceci missed the net more than anyone else in the league last season, with 30 percent of his unblocked shot attempts missing the net. Those missed attempts would often lead to a change in possession:
The right-handed defenseman Ceci is replacing, Schultz didn't have a great year offensively either with three goals and nine assists in 46 games, but how do the underlying analytics compare?
Ceci was the Leafs defenseman last season that generated the least offense, averaging 5.251 shots per 60 minutes and 5.453 primary shot assists. Schultz, on the other hand, generated the most among Penguins defenseman, averaging 12.68 shots per 60 minutes and 5.803 primary shot assists.
Using Bill Comeau's SKATR comparison tool, the underlying numbers show that aside from total shot assists, Schultz outperformed Ceci offensively last season.
Defensively, though, we see that Ceci saw fewer shots against relative to his teammates than Schultz did.
Looking at the "context" section at the bottom of the chart, we see that Ceci had slightly better teammates on average than Schultz did, but faced more high-quality opponents and started in the offensive zone less often.
When we look at Micah Blake McCurdy's isolated impact visualizations, which show a player's impact offensively and defensively independent of the quality of their teammates and opponents and deployment, Ceci just isn't especially great or awful in either area. The Leafs as a whole saw eight percent less offensive production when Ceci was on the ice, and the offense that was created wasn't coming from his side of the ice. The right side is all blue, which means the unblocked shot attempts coming from there fall below the league average:
Ceci's presence on the ice was also associated with slightly better defense. The blue areas on the left chart show where the Leafs were especially strong defensively while Ceci was on the ice, and the red areas show where they allowed more unblocked shot attempts:
MIKE MATHESON
Rutherford called 26-year-old Matheson "a young, skilled defenseman with great offensive instincts who plays with speed and has a good shot."
Matheson's career-best season offensively was 2017-18, when he produced 10 goals and 17 assists in 81 games. Matheson played 59 games in the coronavirus-shortened 2019-20 season, missing just over two weeks due to injury early in the season and missing a few games as a healthy scratch later on. He still produced offensively at roughly the same rate, scoring eight goals and 12 assists in those 59 games.
He doesn't appear to be slowing down offensively any time soon.
Criticism of Matheson in recent years involved his decision-making, which led to him being out of position at times or turnovers. The numbers back that up -- Matheson had the second-highest rate of giveaways per 60 minutes of five-on-five among Florida defensemen last season, with 3.27. No regular Penguins defenseman averaged more than 2.92 giveaways last season, and the left-handed defenseman Matheson is replacing, Johnson, averaged only 1.22.
Aside from the rate of turnovers, it's pretty clear-cut that Matheson is an upgrade both offensively and defensively over Johnson. Not a ton of hard analysis needed here.
The "context" section at the bottom of the chart shows us that Matheson had a lower quality of teammates, was on the ice against a higher quality of competition, and started far less of his shifts in the offensive zone than Johnson, and still outperformed him.
The biggest area in which Matheson is an upgrade here is perhaps in his skating ability and his great speed. After both Rutherford and Mike Sullivan spoke about the need to get younger and faster in the offseason, the defense is one area in which that definitely happened.
BOTTOM LINE
The third pairing last season was an offensive defenseman whose offense was lacking, paired with a shutdown defenseman who had become a liability. Their replacements are a two-way defenseman who doesn't contribute much positively or negatively, and an offensive defenseman who can at times lessen his positive impact by losing the puck. The new guys aren't without their flaws, but the defense looks to be better than it was when last season ended.