On Sunday, The Seattle Times’ Geoff Baker reported that the city’s expansion franchise
brought in Alexandra Mandrycky as director of hockey administration. Mandrycky, who officially starts July 1, comes from Minnesota, where she was hired by former Wild GM Chuck Fletcher in January 2016. She built an excellent reputation in that organization, and it wasn’t a surprise that Seattle would pursue her. (Mandrycky’s husband is a doctoral student at the University of Washington.)
What piqued interest across the NHL from Baker’s report was that Mandrycky will be involved in vetting GM candidates. “(Dave Tippett, who left to become coach in Edmonton) set up the parameters of what hockey operations needs, guiding ownership and management how to build and what to look for,” Mandrycky said Tuesday. “This is a unique opportunity. We’ve got two years to build our hockey operations…to innovate, to take what’s been done in the past and improve on that. We’re not just talking about analytics, but every element of hockey operations, scouting, team operations, locker room operations. How can we improve on things across the board? When we’re interviewing a person, you want to understand how they would fit…You can certainly use data to help you understand that. Contracts, trades, team construction, to just ask better questions and have a better understanding of the candidate.”