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Signature Project: Agent Analysis
Completed for: Nashville Predators
Supervised by Jeff Zavatsky (Director of Hockey Administration) and Brian Poile (Assistant General Manager)
Completion date: April 2025
During my time as the Hockey Operations Office Intern with the Nashville Predators, I was always looking for ways to add value. Early on, I zeroed in on an area of the hockey operations landscape that I felt was both highly relevant to the work of a team and also lacking in terms of public attention: agents. Teams and fans alike utilize a variety of tools to assess player performance, and for good reason - people want to know how well a player is playing.
My basic idea was to investigate whether core elements of the player evaluation process could be applied to NHLPA-certified player agents. If tried to evaluate agent 'performance' along the same lines as player performance, could any meaningful conclusions be drawn? Could those conclusions provide additional insight into the agents hockey operations professionals interact with on a daily basis? And, perhaps most importantly, could those meaningful conclusions provide a team with an additional ingredient to include as part of a larger player value framework?
Would it be beneficial to a team for their lead negotiators to know, empirically, which agents were most team-friendly, player-friendly, or market-attuned?
Those were the questions I sought to answer with this project.
I created a web-based dashboard to display project findings in a sleek, easily-navigateable format. Hockey Operations executives could utilize the dashboard to quickly access information to help add color to their decision-making process.
The backbone of the web dashboard was coded in Python, and hosted on Streamlit. By taking a web-based approach rather than creating a static PDF report, I could make real-time updates and fine-tune the deliverables to cater to the specific requests of team management.
Through this project, I was able to uncover useful insights about NHLPA certified agents. Because the compensation of every player signed to an NHL contract is public information, I was able to utilize player salary data alongside player performance metrics to reach conclusions about whether players were being appropriately compensated for their on-ice contributions.
An agent whose clients routinely signed contracts that ended up holding more monetary value than those players provided on the ice would be considered player-friendly, while the reverse would be team-friendly. Agents who most frequently signed contracts that reflected their players' true value were considered 'market-attuned.'
By examining six years of NHL contract information — including players signed to two-way contracts — I was able to provide insights into agent behavior that could contribute to the broader player evaluation process.
This project was a long-term effort with quite a bit of trial, error, and iteration. Below are examples of work completed during different, earlier stages of the process — work that I advanced beyond, but work that nonetheless helped me ultimately conclude with the web-based dashboard shown above.
Agent Analysis Project, A Step-by-Step Process:
Hands-On Hockey Operations Work
Completed for: Nashville Predators
Supervised by Jeff Zavatsky, Alexis Bazydola (Hockey Operations Coordinator), Brandon Walker (Dir. Team Services)
Completion date: 2024-25 NHL Season
In the section above, you got to see my signature at-my-desk project from my time with the Predators. But while a significant portion of my time was spent at my desk, another significant portion was spent on my feet. Below are some examples (I can't include them all!) of the hands-on assistance I was able to provide to the Predators' Hockey Operations efforts, with much of the work falling under the umbrella of Team Services.
In-game help with video coaches
Family and management area set-up
Player movement help
Assistance with team events:
Team holiday party
Season kick-off
Quality-of-Life Project
Completed for: Nashville Predators
Supervised by Brian Poile, Jeff Zavatsky, Alexis Bazydola
Completion date: Spring 2025
Another major project I completed in Nashville was at the request of assistant general manager Brian Poile. I was taskedwith constructing and completing an overview of how all 32 NHL markets stack up across 14 different quality-of-life metrics. In short - I was looking to see how NHL cities compare in terms of what life is like for players.
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Through this project, I was able to gain a greater understanding of what areas are most important to NHL players - and what areas get emphasized by NHL teams in the player recruitment process. My work on this project culminated in a significant addition to the team's recruiting materials.
Daily Injury Tracking
Completed for: Nashville Predators
Supervised by Jon Sherman (Hockey Operations Coordinator & Analyst)
Completion date: Submitted on daily basis, throughout 2024-25 season
One of my core responsibilities as the Hockey Operations intern during the 2024-25 season was tracking injuries across the NHL. It was my job to cut through the chronic lack of clarity in official communications about injuries in the NHL in order to provide our department with a clear, up-to-date, and accurate portrait of injuries around the league.
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Alongside logging injuries in a spreadsheet, a day's injury developments would be compiled into a daily report that would be delivered into the inbox of more than a dozen people across the department, including general manager Barry Trotz.
Player Marketing Overhaul
Completed for: Maryland Black Bears (NAHL)
Supervised by Clint Mylymok (General Manager & Head Coach), Sam Shaheen (Assistant Coach)
Completion date: February 21, 2024
During my time with the Black Bears, I was on the lookout for different ways I could make a more sizable mark on the team's hockey operations. I entered mid-season to a team that was on a roll, so it was important to me that I make my mark in a way that wouldn't change the flow of the day-to-day hockey work. Since the primary goal of a NAHL team, outside of winning the Robertson Cup, is to assist its players in reaching college hockey, I asked coach Mylymok and coach Shaheen to walk me through the process of how they market Black Bears to college programs.
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Coach Mylymok had already built an impressive record of college commitments, and had built the Black Bears from the ground up. So when I offered to put my own spin on how the Black Bears 'market' their players to college programs, I was made sure to emphasize that my project would simply look to enhance the work already underway, rather than try to replace it.
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My idea for how to impact player marketing was to apply principles of salesmanship to how the team communicates with college programs. To, for lack of a better way of putting it, add a little bit of 'sparkle' to the process. My plan was simple:
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Learn what information was most relevant to college programs in their own recruitment process.
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Acquire and compile that information on our players.
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Present that information in a sleek, centralized online format that would be easily accessible to anyone with a link.
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The final product of this approach was an online hub of player information, with profiles of each player on the team without a college commitment. The profiles included hand-made Photoshop graphics, highlight reels, key relevant analytics data, a testimonial from our coaching staff, and the player's core statistics.
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The following players were featured on the website I created and ended up with college commitments:​
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Tyler Stern (Northern Michigan University, NCAA D-I)
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Cal Huston (Miami University (Ohio), NCAA D-I)
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Luke Amell (Sacred Heart University, NCAA D-I)
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Sebastien Brockman (Aurora University, NCAA D-III)
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Jesse Horacek (SUNY-Oswego, NCAA D-III)
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Michael Urgo (SUNY-Oswego, NCAA D-III)
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Trayce Johnson (Trine University, NCAA D-III)
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Ryder Nienhuis (Adrian College, NCAA D-III)
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Dylan Gordon (University of Navada - Las Vegas, ACHA)
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Riley Ruh (University of Arizona, ACHA)
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Hands-On Hockey Operations Work
Completed for: Maryland Black Bears, Black Bear Sports Group (Spring 2024)
Supervised by Clint Mylymok, Sam Shaheen, Chris Rogers (Team President), Jess Thomas (Marketing, Production, and Events Manager), Ryan Scott & Spenser Young (Black Bear Sports Group)
During my semester in Maryland, I split my time between working with NAHL Maryland Black Bears (MBB) at their home rink in Odenton, MD, and with Black Bear Sports Group (BBSG) at their corporate office in Bethesda, MD. I had distinct responsibilities with both BBSG and MBB, though there was some overlap. Black Bear Sports group is among the nation's largest single owners of ice rinks and youth hockey associations in the United States. They own and operate a youth hockey progression pyramid with the USHL's Youngstown Phantoms, 2023 Clark Cup Champions, sitting at the top.
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I held numerous responsibilties with BBSG, including assisting with tracking and oversight for registrations to the company's many tournaments. In addition, I organized the process of creating and distributing invites to main camp for the Black Bears, and helped design potential invites for BBSG's other junior hockey properties - including the Phantoms, P.A.L. Junior Islanders and the Mercer Chiefs.
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With the Black Bears, my efforts were devoted both to assisting with game presentation pre-game and then operating in a video coaching capacity during games. During every Black Bears home game and select road games, it was my responsibility to track potentially relevant on-ice events during play and prepare video for access by the coaching staff in between periods.
During intermissions, I would set up video in the office of the coaching staff and provide coaches with access to desired video clips. My video work would be utilized to assist in making mid-game adjustments and to help coaches explain in-game tactics to players.
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The 2023-24 Maryland Black Bears set numerous franchise records, including most wins in a single season. After I began interning with the team, the Black Bears amassed a 17-7-0 regular-season record and made it to the Robertson Cup Final in the playoffs.
In-game video work
Main Camp invite production & distribution
Regional Scouting
Completed for: McKeen's Hockey (Online & Print Magazine) 2022-2024
Supervised by Brock Otten (Director of Scouting)
In August 2022, I joined the scouting staff at McKeen's Hockey as a U.S. Regional Scout. With McKeen's, I was responsible for scouting prospects eligible for the NHL Entry Draft, as well as recently drafted prospects, who were playing in the NCAA, USHL, NAHL, and in American high schools.
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I scouted prospects across the 2023 and 2024 draft cycles, publishing full scouting reports on top prospects such as Will Smith, Zeev Buium, and Cole Eiserman. My scouting work was published on the McKeen's website, in the McKeen's print magazines, and was quoted by Elite Prospects and was featured on NHL Network for the official broadcast of the 2024 NHL Draft.
Scouting work featured on NHL Network
2024 McKeen's NHL Draft Guide
HockeyAtlas Project
Completed for: HockeyAtlas, LLC. (2018-2020)
My professional experience in hockey began when I was a high school student. I had such a strong passion for hockey and wanted to get started working in hockey - but there were not and are not many opportunities to actually do so for high schoolers, and especially high schoolers located in the middle of Manhattan.
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For months, I had been printing out team media guides, compiling the player pages into one massive binder, and then scribbling notes on each player's profile after watching NHL games with my family. I then had the idea - what if I did that exercise, but online? What if I was able to write a concise scouting report on every single player in the NHL?
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I found that too often, I'd want to learn more about a player, but my options would be relatively limited. I could see his statistics on platforms like HockeyDB or Hockey Reference, but scoring statistics only tell a portion of a player's story. You can learn a little bit more breaking things down by deployment, like looking at how much a coach trusted a player to play in short-handed situations, but that only goes so far as well. I felt that what was missing from the public experience of learning about professional hockey players was the most important aspect: the tape. So I decided to create the website that I wished had existed at the time.
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I purchased a $9.99 NHL.tv subscription, and spent a summer watching endless NHL games, scribbling down countless lines of notes, all culminating in a website featuring over 800 player profiles.
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I called it HockeyAtlas, named after the book that collects maps, charts, and has throughout history helped people navigate unfamiliar territory. The project grew beyond just myself, and I ended up overseeing a team of six people all invested in hosting my work on a sleek, dynamic website. HockeyAtlas launched in September of 2019, and was an instant hit, garnering over 250,000 hits on launch day alone. We had inquiries from people wanting to join the team, folks who wanted to donate to the project, and we even had a verbal agreement on a partnership with one of the largest hockey news accounts on social media at the time
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Although active work on HockeyAtlas concluded upon my enrollment at Syracuse University, it was a special experience that proved to be an invaluable first step in my journey working in hockey.
