Edmonton Oilers make intriguing addition to coaching staff

We can certainly appreciate why a certain Oilers' decision earlier this week, will have overshadowed all the good work the organisation has undertaken since their offseason began. At the same time, the hiring of Stan Bowman as general manager and executive vice president of hockey operations doesn't suddenly erase all of those other undeniably positive moves.

Along these lines, the Oilers have made another move which should be considered a positive one, but at the very least is certainly intriguing. As per Preston Hodgkinson of the Daily Hive Edmonton, the Oilers have hired Erik Elenz as a video and analytics coaching coordinator.

As Hodgkinson notes, the Oilers have made no official announcement. However, Elenz has been added to the hockey operations section of the team's official site.

Success at a young age

What is of particular intrigue when it comes to Elenz is that he's only 24, and yet has already enjoyed considerable success in the hockey world. He's coming off two seasons with the Coachella Valley Firebirds, who are the AHL affiliate for the Seattle Kraken.

Despite the Firebirds only starting play in 2022-23, they've already been to the Calder Cup Final in both of their seasons in the AHL, ableit losing to the Hershey Bears both times. Regardless, Elenz played a key role in helping with the franchise's early success as their video coach, to the extent it impressed Oilers CEO Jeff Jackson enough to hire him.

As per Judd Spicer of theahl.com, Elenz was a busy man during his time in Southern California, working pre-game, post-game and in-game. He was charged with organizing piles of hockey video data, and the metrics therein.

Especially hectic on game days

Elenz was particularly busy during games. (On game days, he was known to work up to 18 hours.) As per Spicer's article from December last year, he said: "During the game, I’m on the headset with (assistant coach) Jess (Campbell) from the bench, and (goalie coach) Colin (Zulianello) up in the box, and I’m live-tagging the game throughout. So, basically, between those communications, I have the video game feed and I’m telling the computer what’s happening."

The pressure Elenz worked so well under, became even more impressive as he expanded on what he'd do in games. He said: "There are a lot of different things happening at the same time. Let’s say there’s a forecheck or a faceoff. I tell that to the computer, and then (head coach) Dan (Bylsma) will ask Jess and she’ll ask me on the radio, ‘What happened on that forecheck?’ or, ‘What happened on that last faceoff?’ And I’ll say something like, ‘This guy went to the right position, but the opponent made a good wall play, so maybe we can adjust something there.' "

Prior to joining the Firebirds, Elenz was the director of video for the University of Vermont men's hockey team for four years. His success there led to working as video coordinator on the coaching staff for Germany at the 2022 IIHF World Hockey Championships, where they finished second in their group and made it to the quarterfinals.

You would assume Elenz will be working under the Oilers' video coach Noah Segall, as well as with senior director of date and analytics, Michael Parkatti. If his work up to this point is anything to go by, he should prove to be an invaluable addition to the organisation.

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