Bruins continue to grow with analytics world

CSN’s Joe Haggerty outlines how the Boston Bruins have made longtime employee Ryan Nadeau the Director of Hockey Operations and Analytics. The team has already been deeply entrenched in the world of advanced statistics, but this is another sign of how NHL teams are distinctly marking the importance of this particular element.

“It’s not a new thing. We’ve always done it," Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli said. "But we wanted to augment the department a little bit. He will be in charge of doing that. It’s always a supplemental piece to our decision-making. We just wanted to make sure we’re growing it and doing it properly. Your first instinct is scouting and talent evaluation, and this is another piece.

“We used to do it back in Ottawa — we did it more on the amateur scouting side. You just can’t get caught up in it too much. It’s another piece of info that — it promotes discussion, and through that, you end up back on the talent evaluation. So I think it’s a real instructional piece. We just don’t publicize it. Ryan has been with the organization for quite a while. He’s a point guy on that anyways, so he generates a lot of lists and metrics that we see when we’re making our decisions. I just wanted to give him that promotion, and let him grow the department.”

Chiarelli wouldn’t get into too many specifics on analytics, but did note that “we’re just going to kind of grow with it. It’s changing quickly, and we want to make sure we’re there.”

Source: Joe Haggerty, CSN