Analyze this
The co-founders of war-on-ice.com, hockey's premier analytics site and Wild consultants since last summer, were officially hired full-time by the team this week.
Andrew Thomas received a Ph.D. in statistics from Harvard in 2009 and a bachelor's degree in physics from MIT in 2004. Alexandra Mandrycky graduated from Georgia Tech with a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering in 2013.
They'll work with Ben Resnick, who got his master's in economics at Penn in 2007 and has been the Wild's advanced stats guru the past four years.
"A lot of brain power there," assistant GM Brent Flahr said, laughing. "You go into the office and walk in the boardroom, and they've got secret codes and it's like they're splitting the atom in there sometimes."
Loud, Loui?
The Wild has reportedly inquired about pending Boston Bruins free agent Loui Eriksson, but unless the Wild can significantly unload money, this would almost have to be a rental-type trade for Eriksson, rumored to be seeking in the $6 million range annually.
The Wild likely couldn't afford that. Also, with the Bruins currently occupying the top wild-card spot in the East, it's hard to believe they'd trade their second-leading scorer this soon before the Feb. 29 trade deadline.
Let's do it!
In the potential rental forward market, here's my top five: 1. Steven Stamkos, Tampa Bay; 2. Eriksson; 3. Mikkel Boedker, Arizona; 4. Andrew Ladd, Winnipeg; 5. Eric Staal, Carolina.
