The Devils made waves among the stats community on Thursday, and not because of any player personnel decision.
New Jersey has reportedly hired - or is close to hiring - stats guru, former poker player/author and hockey blogger Sunny Mehta to be the team's Director of Analytics.
While Lou Lamoriello said the Devils are still in the process of finalizing their analytics hirings, several people have confirmed - I'm assuming with word from Mehta - that he has been hired by the team.
Whether pen has hit paper yet is unknown, but if not it seems the deal is all but done.
The reported decision to hire Mehta was met with great praise by many that know him and/or have read his work.
I've read Mehta's stuff and the guy is obviously super bright. Other teams relying on gut instinct. I like New Jersey's chances..
— Travis Yost (@TravisHeHateMe) June 12, 2014Big time congrats to Sunny Mehta. He's legitimate and a great hire for the Devils. He'd be in my top group if I was hiring.
— mc79hockey (@mc79hockey) June 12, 2014I think analytics can be a great deal of help when utilized in proper context, and like the decision to bring Mehta on board. I went through some of Mehta's old work, and as my colleague Travis Yost mentioned, he's clearly very intelligent. He knows what conclusions you can pull from using advanced data, and that should prove as an asset for the franchise.
How much of an impact Mehta has on the team and how strongly his word influences decisions made by Lou Lamoriello remains to be seen.
If Mehta's doing his job properly, and I'm very confident he will, then there's certain things I can see the Devils doing this off-season that will help the team come October.
First and foremost, I don't think Mehta will have to look through much data before recommending the Devils put a high priority on retaining soon-to-be unrestricted free agent Mark Fayne. He's a very underrated defenseman who's played great for New Jersey over the years. The team's best defenseman Andy Greene is better playing with Fayne than without, which alone should be enough for the team to bring him back. This, of course, providing the asking price isn't ridiculously high, which I doubt will be an issue.
Even simple numbers like points/60 minutes in situation X should be revealed by Mehta, which will help Pete DeBoer with his lineup decisions.
As I've made known several times in this space, Eric Gelinas was the most efficient power play defenseman in hockey last season. That means he should be in the lineup and see a steady dose of ice with the man advantage.
How much of an influence Mehta will have on the team remains to be seen, but I don't think it'll take many roster moves to find out.
It'll be fun to see what the Devils' personnel decisions moving forward, because it'll be pretty easy to realize which decisions were made with analytics in mind and which decisions were not.
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