We wind things down with some of the better forwards on the team. Anthony Cirelli was healthy and productive last season. One of the best two-way forwards on the team, Cirelli put up career-high numbers offensively while also remaining a strong defensive players. He also had three two-goal games last year so he gets to keep the Tony Two Goals nickname.
The Basics
Name: Anthony Cirelli
Position: Center
Counting Stats: 79 Games, 20 Goals, 25 Assists, 18:31 TOI
Extra Stats (5v5): 52.36 CF%, 51.09 SF%, 47.57 GF%, 52.12 xGF%, 53.73 HDCF%, .891 On-ice Save Percentage, 11.88 iXG
2023-24 Contract: First year of an 8-year contract that had an AAV of $6.25 million
Contract Status: Second year of an 8-year contract that is worth $50 million total.
The Charts
The Review
Honestly, when looking at the numbers Anthony Cirelli last season, the one that stands out is games played. He appeared in 79 regular season games, the most he’s played since the 2018-19 season, and more importantly, he looked fully healthy for all of those games. After a 2022-23 season that was truncated by shoulder surgery recovery, Cirelli seems to be back on track to being the exceptional two-way forward that the Lightning need him to be.
He also hit the 20-goal mark for the first time in his career, and his 45 point total was also a career high. Some of his defensive stats were off from previous campaigns, but he still remains one of the Lightning’s best defensive forwards and a stalwart on the penalty kill. The 27 year-old picked up a third-place vote for the Selke Trophy, making it six out of seven seasons that at least one voter thought he was among the top five defensive forwards in the game.
Did he produce enough to be a second-line center? That seems to be the eternal question with him, and to be honest, it would probably be nice to see about 10 more points out of him throughout the course of the season, but with the way the roster is currently constructed, is there anyone who would push him out of the spot? The hope is that, at some point in the not too distant future, Conor Geekie embraces that role, but for now Nick Paul is the only one who could probably give him a run for the money, and there is a better than average chance that Mr. Does It All ends up on Cirelli’s wing.
With the way that Cirelli put his offensive season together last year, it’s not hard to think he can at least duplicate the results. He shot 9.80% at 5v5 and put up 10 of his 20 goals while averaging just 10.5 shot attempts per 60 minutes, the second-lowest number of his career. Like a few other forwards on the Lightning, he could probably benefit from shooting the puck more, but when you spend 422 minutes on the ice with Steven Stamkos, there is a tendency to let the shooter do the shooting (hence the solid blue line under “shot assists” in the All Three Zones breakdown).
With Stamkos enjoying life at Nudie’s Honky Tonk in Nashville, it will be interesting to see if Cirelli ups the shot output in the upcoming season. He’ll likely center Brandon Hagel and a rotating guest star for the early part of the season until Coach Cooper decides on the best combination, so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if Cirelli does up his individual shots during that feeling out process.
In looking at some of the line combinations Cirelli played with last season, a Hagel/Cirelli/Mikey Eyssimount combination wouldn’t be surprising to see. The trio linked up for 50 minutes last season and sported a 66.74 xGF%, not too shabby. Imagine having to deal with that forecheck for 20 minutes a night.
Defensively, like we said earlier, there was a little slippage in his game, but like most of the team he picked things up as the season progressed, and a lot of that was on the penalty kill. While Evolving Hockey ranked him slightly below league average on the PK, Cirelli did pick up two more shorthanded goals and is now tied with Vinny Lecavalier for third all-time in franchise history with 13. His next one ties him with Rob Zamuner for second, but he’ll need a few more years under his belt to catch Marty St. Louis’ franchise-leading 28.
Cirelli remains one of the best backcheckers on the team and his ability to disrupt a play, especially an odd-man rush, is one of the best assets he has on the team. He also has that ability to break up a play with a blocked shot (he led Lightning forwards with 75) and turn it into offense.
As far as his contract, honestly, it is what it is. Both Evolving Hockey and The Athletic had his value at slightly below his cap hit (by about a million dollars) but honestly, if he continues to play at the level he did last year, that value will rise in relation to it’s cap hit as the cap grows over the next few seasons. In other words, a lot worse players will be signing for $6.25 million a year.
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