Kraken Promotes Analysis Director Alexandra Mandrycky to Deputy GM

One of the most memorable compliments Kraken analytics specialist Alexandra Mandrycky paid her boss was telling him he was “more of a nerd” than he realised.

Luckily for 31-year-old Mandrycky, this unique approach to job development worked well, as the “nerd” – Kraken general manager Ron Francis – promoted her to assistant GM, the NHL’s first woman to hold the title and herself mainly specialized in analytics.

The relationship between the team’s first two hockey operations staffers, with Mandrycky actually preceding Francis by a few weeks in July 2019, has long been close, beginning with the start of a promotional tour in Seattle during her first month on the job.

And Francis told it, even a little friendly nerd call didn’t change his mind that Mandrycky gave up her title as director of hockey strategy and research to join his inner circle as assistant GM alongside Ricky Olczyk and Jason Botterill.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, thanks,” Francis said, adding that he was proud to have been teased for being open about including analytics in the team’s approach. “I think that with all the tools you can use to get better, you would be stupid not to use them.

“We try to do our best and use all the people we have with expertise to improve. Whether they’re scouts in the field or people looking at data or a computer base. I think everyone can help.”

Speaking of Boy Scouts, it was Mandrycky’s ability to seamlessly blend analytics with her more traditional work that ultimately secured her ascension. Reporting directly to her will be the team’s amateur scouting director, Robert Kron, who was praised for his widely successful first two Kraken designs.

“When I think about what I think made us successful, I consider it a success that nobody’s trying to force us out of a room,” Mandrycky said. “We are respected by everyone in this organization and I think that’s the way it should be.”

Mandrycky is the seventh female assistant GM in NHL history and the sixth hired since January. Angela Gorgone became Anaheim’s first female assistant GM in 1996-97, but it was a quarter of a century before Emily Castonguay was signed by the Vancouver Canucks in January.

Kraken pro scout Cammi Granato was hired by the Canucks a month later as an assistant GM, followed by Meghan Hunter, promoted from Chicago, Kate Madigan from New Jersey and hockey icon Hayley Wickenheiser from Toronto.

Mandrycky’s ability to work well with Kraken Scouts was no accident.

She joined Kraken after four years as a data analyst on the Minnesota Wild analytics team. The Wild was going through organizational turmoil at the time and the analysis team was not spared; after being hired by former GM Chuck Fletcher, only to constantly clash with a new regime led by Paul Fenton.

The Wild fired Fenton after just 14 months as GM and just weeks after Mandrycky left the team. And while tensions between analytics and the front office were only a small part of the reason Fenton was fired, Mandrycky has spent the last three years with her new team working on the human relations portion of her job.

“In Alex’s case, she doesn’t come in and throw down the hammer and say, ‘This is how it has to be,'” Francis said.

“In many of our discussions, we don’t just talk about analytics. We’re talking about players. We’re talking about things we’re looking for in players. And if there are disagreements – that’s what the numbers say to player X, but the scouts say that to player X – it’s also about going back into R&D [R&D] team to check again.”

Francis added: “We ask scouts to understand analytics. But we also need the R&D team to understand the scouts. So it goes back and looks at games and looks at the video and sees that’s what we’re talking about. Your willingness to do so has certainly helped fill that gap. Investing that time and effort earns her respect. You don’t just come and ask for it. You have to earn it. And she did.”

And Mandrycky knows she needs that buy-in to be successful. She was first introduced to hockey through her husband, who is from Buffalo and is an avid Sabers fan, although she never played the game.

Instead, after graduating from Georgia Tech with an engineering degree, she delved into the statistical aspects of hockey to keep her analytical and programming skills up to date. And ever since, she’s shown the hockey players at the Kraken that she can help them win.

“Nobody kicks me out of a room when I walk in,” Mandrycky said. “Everyone respects me and every member of the R&D team, whether it’s the coaches or the scouts in the draft. I think the participation alone shows the impact our group is having.”