The Edmonton Oilers’ front office shuffling continued on Thursday morning just prior to the start of on-ice training camp sessions.
Jeff Jackson, recently appointed CEO of Hockey Operations, had very recently alluded on the radio that the team would have an announcement shortly related to their hockey analytics department and it turned out to be a massive hire.
The Oilers formally announced the hiring of Michael Parkatti as the Senior Director, Data and Analytics for the team. Here is what you need to know about Parkatti and his role with the club.
Experience and career history
Parkatti joins the Oilers hockey operations staff after most recently working with Suncor Energy in Calgary as the Manager of Advanced Analytics. He’s truly an Oiler through and through.
Parkatti has previously worked with the Government of Alberta in their Economic Information & Analytics department before moving into a VP role at Conexus Credit Union in their Data & Analytics group. Safe to say he has the experience to step into this type of role.
Fascinating enough is that Parkatti may look like an outsider to the hockey world, but in fact had previously worked with the Oilers as a consultant after winning the Oilers-sponsored Analytics Hackathon back in 2013 and helped develop some models around expected goals. Something that almost all teams and media use today for analysis.
His role with the team will be to lead and develop a new analytics department to take a central role in hockey operations moving forward.
Onwards and upwards
After years of being one of the worst-staffed analytics departments in the NHL despite having the world’s best NHL player, this is a massive step in the right direction for the franchise. In just two months as CEO, Jackson has made essential strides to ensure long-term success for the team.
The efforts made to build out a team already are ten times more than what Bob Nicholson had been doing for the last nine years. Here’s to hoping that Parkatti’s insights and skillsets can take the team to the next level.
