The trend of NHL front offices getting more analytical in their approach to building rosters appears set to continue this offseason. Last year became widely known as the "summer of analytics" as many clubs very publicly hired experts in the underlying numbers in the game. The Arizona Coyotes look to be the next in the increasingly long line of clubs giving analytics a place of prominence in their front office.
The club has hired John Chayka, a former junior hockey player who cofounded a company called Stathletes, to be an assistant general manager according to Aaron Ward of TSN. Chayka is just 25 years old.
This is somewhat reminiscent of the Toronto Maple Leafs hiring 28-year-old Kyle Dubas to be the assistant general manager last summer, only Dubas actually had prior executive experience. He was a player agent and later general manager of the Ontario Hockey League's Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds before being scooped up by Toronto.
Chayka is three years Dubas' junior at the time of his hiring and hasn't exactly had time to build as robust a resume as the Leafs' assistant GM. That said, Chayka has been very closely working with hockey since hanging up his skates after playing parts of three seasons in the junior ranks, including a two-year stint with the Woodstock Slammers in the Maritime Junior A Hockey League. In his second season with Woodstock, Chayka actually was third in the league in scoring, so it appears he could play a little bit.
Stathletes, the company Chayka co-founded with a friend, has been manually tracking hockey games and using extensive video analysis to help evaluate players. The company claims that it has yielded over 100 times the statistical resolution of the typical tracking methods.
Most of the "fancy stats," at least in the public sphere, are collected via the NHL's often unreliable live statistics reports. How stats, from shot attempts to giveaways to hits, are tracked can vary from building to building. While those numbers still paint a pretty good picture of what is happening on the ice, they're not going to be 100 percent accurate due to the human element of the NHL's data collecting.
According to Chayka's LinkedIn page, he has been running Stathletes since May of 2009. On top of collecting the data, he also was dealing with sales and client relations, meaning there was a lot of work going into this beyond the statistical collecting. That also would indicate he's had some serious face-to-face time with NHL front offices while with the company. That also means he's been at this since he was 19 years old. What were you doing when you were 19?
The company's website says that it serves all major North American hockey leagues and affiliates, and provides them with exclusive stats. Stathletes' stated goal is to develop and provide "a comprehensive statistical database to drive winning in hockey through real, actionable data."
It will be interesting to find out if the Coyotes also bought the company, or found a way to make its work exclusive to them.
The Edmonton Oilers hired noted statistics blogger Tyler Dellow, who shut down mc79hockey.com after being hired, scrubbing the internet of thousands of insightful pieces with in-depth analysis, some of which was considered revolutionary. The Toronto Maple Leafs hired Daryl Metcalf, founder of ExtraSkater.com which had been the most user-friendly of statistics websites for fans. That also was scrubbed from the internet upon Metcalf joining the Leafs.
When teams hire people like Chayka, they're not just hiring them for their expertise. They want all of the information they have culled and analyzed already. Details of his joining the organization have not yet been made public, as the Coyotes have yet to officially introduce their reported new assistant GM.
For the Coyotes, bringing in someone with a wide database like Chayka, who has spent years pouring over the numbers, could bring a lot of value to the team. Arizona is not going to be a team that spends to the cap. They're also in the midst of what could be a very painful rebuilding process.
Every decision this organization faces over this rebuilding process has to be made with great care. At this point as they have to put a lot of pieces in place to make this rebuilding process a successful one. Finding players that can out-produce what the market says they're worth is key. Finding prospects that are going to be able to make an impact in the next two or three years is obviously going to be huge as well. Viewing these players in the most comprehensive way possible, taking into account the tangible and intangible, helps make those deicisons more informed.
Chayka's age obviously raises eyebrows, but the Coyotes are going to have to think outside the box to get themselves on a path back to respectability. This is definitely that.
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