Sports Illustrated ranks Coyotes signing of assistant GM John Chayka among best this offseason

The Arizona Coyotes have had a very successful off-season making on-ice personnel moves.

They were able to bring back solid veterans in Antoine Vermette, Boyd Gordon and Zbynek Michalek, while adding players like Nicklas Grossman, Steve Downie, Brad Richardson and John Scott.

Not to mention the strong draft class from general manager Don Maloney, headlined by the selection of Dylan Strome.

The team was able to garner more praise on Monday, this time about a move they made to their front office.

Arizona’s signing of assistant general manager John Chayka made Sports Illustrated’s 10 smartest off-ice hiring’s of the 2015 season.

Not everyone has been won over by the value of analytics, but a team with limited resources and even less talent simply can’t afford to ignore them. Chayka, the 25-year-old co-founder of Stathletes, is being tasked with identifying value in the market, particularly of veteran players who can augment a lineup that is expected to skew young for the next several years. He was the driving force behind the signing of Brad Richardson this month. Of course, Arizona also picked up lumbering winger John Scott, who is best known for slinging his fists. We’ll see how those moves, and the ones that follow, pay off.

Chayka was specifically signed to oversee the Coyotes analytic department.

His company states on their website that every facet of each game is observed and recorded through their intensive video analysis process, yielding over 100 times the statistical resolution of existing tracking methods.

The move signified another step towards the Coyotes exciting youth movement of building a successful future.