Summer of Analytics Too: Electric Boogaloo: Leafs Hire Bruce Peter

According to the Saskatoon Blades, the Leafs have hired their Statistical Analyst, Bruce Peter.

Peter has already been added to the Mapleleafs.com Management list, so we can assume this is official.

Peter will be joining a team that includes Cam Charron (former editor of this site and noted girlfriend haver), Darryl Metcalf, and Rob Pettapiece reporting up to Kyle Dubas.

With the amount of growth in analytics, and the initial success the Leafs have had in finding talent like Winnik, Santorelli, etc. it seems an extra body on the team was in order and adding someone who can bring a perspective that includes junior hockey experience is a bonus. 

For naysayers of analytics, I’m sorry but it looks like the Leafs are fully committed to this approach.

Most recently Peter was with the Saskatoon Blades consulting on stats and providing analysis for the WHL team. Previous to that most of us will know him as an excellent SBNation blogger, who was most recently with Habs Eyes On the Prize and previous to that he ran PuckWorlds.com.

You can check out the full archive of his posts here, but the post that immediately stuck out to me was one that he did on Quality Starts. 

For much more from Bruce Peter here is an interview he did with Rob Vollman:

Stats are good. Analysis is good. Bloggers are the best kind of people. There’s nothing to dislike about having another smart person sharing their smart thoughts with the people building the team. We’ll have to overlook the fact that he’s a Habs fan, and Roughriders fan, but we also had to overlook Cam being a Canucks fan. 

Seriously, this should be taken as a positive, as it means the analytics movement in Toronto isn’t going to stop because Lamoriello. It’s business as usual for Shanahan’s Leafs, and that’s generally an encouraging thing.