Inside the NHL
Alexandra Mandrycky becoming an assistant general manager with the Kraken seems to suggest the team has officially joined the ranks of the NHL’s more analytics-driven squads.
We’d figured as much three years ago when Mandrycky became the organization’s first hockey operations hire, preceding even her boss, GM Ron Francis. But her previous title — director of hockey strategy and research — wasn’t as prestigious as becoming the NHL’s first female assistant GM in an analytics role.
In many ways, Mandrycky is a subset within a subset of the NHL’s vast hockey operations universe: not only a rare woman, but also one specializing in an analytics field still not as developed or accepted in hockey as other sports. So she’ll face pioneering pressures on two fronts, and in this case her gender might not be the biggest one.
“I’ve been fortunate that there have been other women who’ve paved the way here,” Mandrycky said. “It’s good news that I’m not the first or the second. It’s kind of exciting. But there are actually fewer analytics AGMs than there are women as AGMs. I do think there are a lot of people that would look at my background and totally write me off as being able to have an impact on a hockey organization.
“I didn’t play. I didn’t really start watching the game until I was 17. And yet, here I am and hopefully being useful. And so, I think that is maybe a little bit more significant than the gender aspect as far as having something to prove.”
And make no mistake: Like the organization itself, Mandrycky still has much to prove.
Hockey has come a long way getting casual fans and traditionally inclined scouts to accept the value of advanced analytics. But not everyone is sold, to where NHL teams still get divided into camps of those more inclined to analytics than others the way the Oakland Athletics once stood out from baseball counterparts 20 years ago.
There will inevitably be added pressure for Mandrycky if indeed the Kraken are designated as the sport’s next analytics darlings. Outwardly, at least, there’s been little to suggest the Kraken have separated themselves from the pack in terms of analytics or anything else.
Plenty of analytical models and traditional pundits felt the Kraken could be a 90-point playoff contender last season. But they missed that by 30 points.
Was it due to mistakes by the Kraken analytics staff? Bad guesses by traditional scouts? Tough to tell just one season in, especially given how secretive NHL teams and analytics staffs are about proprietary systems and methods.
For now, we’ll say it was probably a little of both.
But ultimately, Mandrycky is the one getting the promotion in a front office that includes assistant GMs Ricky Olcyzk and Jason Botterill. GM Francis said her strength has been to incorporate analytics and scouting cohesively without stepping on anyone’s toes.
And that’s important within a pro-sports realm still adjusting to analytics, evidenced by recent comments from longtime baseball manager Joe Maddon. Though Maddon was one of that sport’s most innovative managerial thinkers, he now questions whether there’s too much information overload for players and dugout-level input from analytics experts that should be left to coaches.
“When you do that, when these people do that, the game becomes cloudy,” Maddon told a recent podcast. “You’re in the dugout, you know what you’d like to do. But these people have come downstairs prior to the game, and they load you with stuff that’s not necessarily helpful.”
So, while few still question the value of more information, there will always be debate about the quality of knowledge and how it gets used. Especially in hockey, where analytics are relatively new and upgraded all the time. The analytical debate over the importance of winning faceoffs alone has seen reams of study devoted to it with opinions still shifting yearly.
“I spend plenty of time in the coach’s room,” Mandrycky said. “But something I’ve learned coming into the game is, ‘Don’t act like you know everything.’ The coach doesn’t know everything. I don’t know everything. So learn and listen. And I’d like to think that when I do speak, people are going to listen.”
Ultimately, that’s in everyone’s mutual interest, given professional sports remain a results-oriented business. Just as coaches, GMs and scouts are continually hired and fired based on team performance, the same accountability will likely become ingrained on the analytics side.
And that accountability will inevitably increase as top analytics minds such as Mandrycky gain decision-making power.
Not all of it will come down to a season’s performance, which is why it’s difficult to judge Mandrycky’s work yet. Among the interesting details of her new job is that Kraken amateur scouting director Robert Kron will report directly to her.
We’ve credited Kron for his work the first two amateur drafts. So, you’d assume Mandrycky had some hand in it and should share some credit.
And because responsibility for winning and losing ultimately falls to Francis, he’ll have to decide whether he’s getting full bang for his analytics buck before the even bigger buck lands at his doorstep.
So into all of this steps a newly promoted Mandrycky as the latest high-profile standard-bearer for both analytics and female sports executives in general. It isn’t lost on me that this column has been more about Mandrycky’s past and future impact as an analytical thinker than as a woman in the male-dominated NHL.
And that’s how she should be judged.
One of the game’s best-known analytical chiefs, Carolina Hurricanes vice president Eric Tulsky, also got his start under Francis and helped them become a Stanley Cup contender.
Despite Mandrycky earning Tulsky’s respect — and I know this from speaking to him — she hasn’t yet matched his success. And she won’t until the Kraken’s performance improves.
Kraken fans should rejoice in this. By promoting Mandrycky, the team, in effect, has cast a bigger public spotlight on analytics and increased the pressure to contribute to winning on-ice results.
Call it progress that those results are what Mandrycky likely will be judged on and not her gender. There’s much at stake with the analytics portion of her pioneering, and the Kraken truly need Mandrycky to get that part right.