Keith Pelley dropped some of the hottest words in corporate speak to a largely hockey-centric audience during his media availability this week. Things like organization structure, alignment, culture (corporate culture not locker room) were all on display and only missing from the shareholder meeting scorecard were “shifting paradigms” and “synergy.” That is Keith Pelley’s world, you want Keith Pelley in that world and not rattling off lists of his favourite Sabres prospects, so there isn’t any judgment for him talking like a CEO, that is after all his title.
The two pieces of information that Pelley shared about what he wants in a General Manager or President of Hockey Operations hire that we’ll focus on a bit more here is his desire for a “data driven” candidate and the need for “evidence-based decision making.” These terms seemed to send one half of the hockey media listing off anyone who has demonstrated the ability to calculate a cosine and has also held a hockey stick, and the other half of the hockey listing off times they heard a member of the old guard state that “you have to use analytics” or mentioned Corsi in a non-slanderous fashion. In corporate speak, if you can make your case, you can be pretty close to latter instead of the former to still fit the criteria.
Externals like Sunny Mehta and Alexandra Mandrycky are interesting data driven options but won’t necessarily move them ahead of GM’s that had established hockey research or analytics divisions on their clubs.
Data driven in corporate speak and evidence based decision making is about the Maple Leafs moving more towards information gathering and collaborative process in the process for the Maple Leafs. Gut decisions are getting tossed out the window, “the buck stops here” approach is retired, and processes based in personal belief like “the offseason is when you build the team” will be no more. Following his departure from the Flames, Brad Treliving’s former staff would highlight how little they were involved in the decision making process and that Brad Treliving would call the shots, it’s likely that more than having a GM knowing how to put together complex algorithms to determine the players most likely to have success as Maple Leafs, Keith Pelley is looking for someone who will value that listen to the Maple Leafs algorithm architects and take that information out into free agency, trade calls, and the draft to use the data and evidence along with their ability to negotiate, evaluate, and collaborate to build a successful team.
The “data driven” options for the Maple Leafs likely include front offices with established histories of data usage. Jason Spezza would certainly get some consideration as he’s been mentored to the Kyle Dubas way of doing things, Brett Peterson’s success in Florida and his work with Bill Zito and Sunny Mehta would make him a strong option as well.
The data driven/evidence based approach Pelley was speaking of has been singled out a lot but is likely more of a flag to what Brad Treliving was not rather than the be-all-to-end-all trait required in a new General Manager. No matter where you come out on analytics, the idea that your favourite team’s GM will have defensible reasoning for their actions should be encouraging.