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The arrival of a new general manager is a difficult time for the staff of any NHL team. Typically, the new G.M. is in place because of deficiencies in the administration of the club, which means that he generally has a mandate to make changes and often enough he’s an outsider without significant ties to the club’s existing management structure. For the Edmonton Oilers, both of those things are true, and we’re likely so see significant alterations to the front office at some point this summer, perhaps after the draft.
Those alterations will not include Tyler Dellow, the Toronto lawyer and writer who was brought aboard last season by the Oilers as a statistical consultant. Dellow confirmed a report on Monday that he will stay on with the team for the 2015-16 season, but declined to comment further on his role with the team.
At the time of his hiring, Dellow was a popular writer in the field of hockey analytics. His website, mc79hockey.com, was one of the early hockey analytics websites and early incubators for ideas now considered mainstream. That site was shuttered upon his hiring, though his work for Rogers Sportsnet remains online.
It’s interesting to review that work, particularly since Dellow’s new role reportedly has more of a front office component to it than it did last season. Here, for example, is what he had to say when the Oilers signed Nikita Nikitin:
It’s hard to find good bargains in free agency. It’s harder when you sign a player to deal that is probably only worth it if he works out incredibly well. The Oilers might well say that they don’t need bargains, they’ve got players on bargain contracts and they need more talent. The thing is, it’s hard to say from his record that Nikitin is good enough to make the Oilers better. He looks a lot more like a reclamation project who’s already being paid as if he’s worked out. We’ll see if he’s a top-four defenceman by February. I’m skeptical.
Here’s what he wrote some time earlier about defenceman Anton Stralman, another free agent from the class of 2014 who, like Nikitin, was signed to a contract with an average annual value of $4.5 million. Stralman, of course, is presently the No. 2 defenceman of the extremely successful Tampa Bay Lightning:
Stralman is pretty valuable: he seems to have a big impact on his team’s Corsi% when he’s on the ice. It will be interesting to see how Stralman’s career progresses from this point. He seems to have come into his own over the past year and a half in New York, although it’s gone under the radar. He’s enjoyed a very good final, in keeping with his season but continues to be basically unnoticed. It will be fascinating to see where he ends up this summer and the impact he has next season. If he continues to have a similar impact on games, he won’t go unmentioned the next time he’s on a team that goes deep in the playoffs.
Those statistical insights into Nikitin and Stralman would have been awfully useful for the Oilers’ front office to have last summer, and it’s reasonable to assume that his track record in this department is one of the reasons that incoming general manager Peter Chiarelli is keeping him on the payroll.
That Dellow’s focus is shifting away from coaching and more toward the management side of the business is probably a wise decision on the part of the new general manager. Aside from the cited examples of Nikitin and Stralman, during his time as a writer Dellow was a staunch advocate of defenceman Jeff Petry, and based on his previous writings it’s reasonable to assume that he would have pushed for Edmonton to sign the rearguard to a long-term deal last summer, rather than the single season contract the club eventually opted for. That contract led directly to Petry’s lamentable departure at this spring’s NHL trade deadline, which in turn led to his exceptional performance with Montreal and a rich long-term contract extension with the Canadiens. Given his track record, Dellow should be a useful resource for Chiarelli as he retools Edmonton’s roster.
Full disclosure: Readers should be aware that Dellow is also a friend of mine and that at times prior to his employment in Edmonton we have shared data from various analytics projects with each other.