August 23, 2023 by Ryan Lotsberg

CEO Jeff Jackson said that he will seek to bring a new perspective to the Edmonton Oilers, and he went on to speak about player personnel, scouting, and analytics in the same breath. In case you missed part one of this series, I wrote about the Oilers Player Personnel department and some potential changes we could see under Jackson. Part two was about the Oilers Amateur Scouting department, which has already seen Tyler Wright moved out (as I had predicted) and Rick Pracey hired as the new Director of Amateur Scouting. Today’s piece will focus on the Professional Scouting department and the Oilers’ use of analytics.

The professional scouting department underwent significant changes last year when Archie Henderson retired and Assistant General Manager Brad Holland was put in charge of professional scouting. Henderson had two Professional Scouts on his staff, Paul Messier and Chris Cichocki. As I pointed out in a piece I did after these changes were made last season, this is a list of players that were brought in under Henderson’s watch:

Josh Archibald

Riley Sheahan

James Neal

Theodor Lennstrom

Mike Green

Adam Cracknell

Kyle Turris

Seth Griffith

Tyler Ennis

Tyson Barrie

Dominik Kahun

Alan Quine

Anton Forsberg

Devin Shore

Troy Grosenick

Dmitri Kulikov

Andreas Athanasiou

Slater Koekkoek

Duncan Keith

Zach Hyman

Cody Ceci

Derek Ryan

Warren Foegele

Brendan Perlini

Colton Sceviour

Alex Stalock

Evander Kane

Brett Kulak

Derrick Brassard

Aside from some obvious successes, there is a large contingent of underachieving bottom six forwards and several defencemen who couldn’t cut it on the list.

Related: Oilers Announce Changes to Hockey Operations Department

Cichocki stayed on after Henderson retired, and Warren Rychel and Jason Pietrzykowski were added last year. Cichocki got a taste of NHL action with 68 games. He also had an eleven year coaching career in the IHL and ECHL. Rychel had a 406 game NHL career, and was a minority owner and General Manager of the Windsor Spitfires for thirteen years. Pietrzykowski was a long time Video Assistant with the Oilers prior to becoming a scout.

This is a small professional scouting staff by NHL standards, even after last year’s changes. While the scouts are qualified enough, the size of the scouting staff doesn’t make it seem like “best in class”. I expect Jackson to increase the amount of professional scouts at his disposal.

Jason Gregor did a great interview with the junior Holland last summer, and he transcribed it in a piece for OilersNation. I’ve linked the piece so that you can read it in its entirety if you choose, but I want to highlight the section where Gregor asked Holland to talk about the use of analytics in the Oilers organization:

Gregor: Since you’ve been working for the Oilers, was there a focus on analytics? Was there more of an emphasis on it than people on the outside who were critical of it, or was it an accurate and fair criticism that Edmonton didn’t use analytics enough?

Holland: “No, I don’t think that it was an accurate and fair criticism, there was a lot more going on than anyone realized. And that’s a smart thing for any club to do. I think Edmonton was close to the first adopter of sports analytics in hockey. If they were not the first, they were one of the first. I think that the modern analytics community in hockey, the Moneyball moment, I believe originated in Edmonton… 

And so I think that it was just kind of assumed that we weren’t doing it. But we have two people, Justin and Shaun Mahé who’ve been here a long time, they have been working with this, doing the numbers, advancing this internally…

So no, when I got here, it was a part of the conversation already. What we’ve done I think internally, at least since I’ve been here, is our leadership group has embraced it and that has allowed people in our organization… like our coach (Jay Woodcroft) loves it, and our previous coach (Dave Tippett) loved it. He tracked scoring chances and put numbers to subjective analysis. It was always a part of the conversation.”

There’s a lot to unpack there. Let’s start at the beginning. Tyler Dellow created a website called mc79hockey.com, which was the first site to offer advanced stats for hockey. The Oilers hired him as a Hockey Analytics Consultant in 2014, but the relationship ended in 2016 when the club announced changes to its front office. I’m not privy to the dirty details of what happened behind the scenes, but it ended curiously. Dellow wrote for The Athletic from 2016-19 before accepting a role as Vice President of Analytics with the New Jersey Devils. The Devils are on the rise. They quietly had a strong season last season, and they beat the stacked New York Rangers in the first round of the playoffs.

Part of those changes to the Oilers front office in 2016 was promoting Jason Mahé to Manager of Hockey Analytics. Mahé was a Player Development/Scouting Video Intern for the Oilers from 2009-2011. He was the Coordinator, Video and Analytics from 2011-2016, and he’s been the Manager of Hockey Analytics ever since 2016. Mahé’s tenure in the Analytics department overlaps with Dellow’s time with the Oilers, so it would seem that Dellow had some role in developing Mahé’s foundation in analytics.

Shaun Mahé replaced Mahé as the Video Intern in 2011, and held the role in two stints in 2011-12 and from 2014-2016. He was promoted to Coordinator, Hockey Operations in July 2016, and he has held the position ever since.

Related: Jackson’s Potential Impact on the Oilers: Part Two – Amateur Scouting

I can’t speak to the internal data used by the Oilers. All I can analyze are the on-ice results. Last season was the first season since 2016-17 where the Oilers had a positive goal share when McDavid and Leon Draisaitl were not on the ice. In fact, it was the first season where that number was above 42.03% during that stretch. 2016-17 and 2022-23 are the only two seasons in which the Oilers have outscored their opponents without their two superstars on the ice during the McDavid era. 

The bottom of the Oilers forward group struggled mightily to even make their goal share close for so many years. McDavid and Draisaitl have big shoulders, but it’s a heavy load to carry when all the other lines weigh the team down. The futility of the bottom six has been a large contributing factor to the Oilers’ lack of team success in the McDavid era.

That changed this past season. That coincides with Holland being placed in charge of the Professional Scouting department and the team’s changes to the professional scouting staff. The Analytics department didn’t change, but this Tweet (can we even call them “Tweets” anymore?) from Shayna (@heyyyshayyy) shows that Holland is also in charge of the analytics department:

One more round of adjustments to the #NHLAnalytics list today. Thanks to everyone who has chipped in to help fill in some gaps! pic.twitter.com/eE94RrdmXB

— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) August 14, 2023

It’s fair to ask questions about the analytics department given the overall lack of success with McDavid and Draisaitl off the ice in the McDavid era. Once again, I don’t know the data that is being used by the analytics department; but I do know that the Mahés have a background in video, not analytics. Ken Holland has also said that Justin Mahé handles player immigration issues. 

Jackson is striving to be “best in class”. Having a two man analytics team composed of video guys, one of which also handles immigration issues for the team, doesn’t scream “best in class”. Now, Jay Woodcroft is also a former video guy, and he’s a fantastic coach. Being good at video doesn’t preclude someone from being good at other things. However, it feels like the Oilers are only dipping their toes into the analytics pool. Elite teams like Colorado, Tampa Bay, and Carolina are all heavily into analytics. New Jersey is another example of a team on the rise that has a substantial analytics department.

Jackson said that he used analytics as an agent. Analytics can help agents form arguments as to why their clients deserve more money. Teams have their own data that they use, and I’m sure Jackson has his own ideas on analytics. Those might differ from Mahé’s ideas. I’ll be quite curious to see if Jackson pushes to beef up the analytics department. I expect that he will.

I just wrote a three part series with over 3,000 words on the potential impact that Jackson can have on the Oilers hockey operations department, and I did not write about the impact of his relationship with McDavid. “Significant” isn’t a big enough word to explain just how much of an impact Jackson can have on the Oilers Hockey Operations department. He’s already started by separating the Amateur Scouting dpeartment and the Player Personnel department. Wright was previously in charge of both departments, but Wright’s replacement is only in charge of amateur scouting. Splitting the leadership duties of those departments between two people should serve to strengthen both departments. It’s decisions like this that will make Jackson’s impact beyond significant.