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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

Leafin' said:
The announced hiring as it stands shows that he’ll have his hands all over decision making.
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Why? I don't buy this at all. I don't like the idea of Chayka being the top decision maker in hockey ops, but I don't think that means Pelley will be involved at all aside from the usual of setting budgets, etc. Super big moves (think Matthews extensions or trades or whatever) always needs board/ownership approval in every front office in the league.
 
I think Chayka is definitely a data-driven guy, and that's a big step up for us. I think his performance in arizona is underrated mostly because the nerds felt he embarassed them, while really arizona was just a godawful and bankrupt organization before and after him on so many levels i find it hard to blame him for so many players underperforming what they had done previously / what they would become soon after (especially after leaving arizona).

He's now going to go from working for the cheapest org in hockey to having limitless funds. I think it'll work out.


sure seems that Sundin is not really inside the chain of command in terms of personnel decisions, but is focused only on the more intangible aspects of the franchise, which sounds more than fine to me.
 
Chayka, who turns 37 in June, returns to an NHL GM’s chair for the first time since July 2020, when he resigned as GM of the Arizona Coyotes following four years in that position.

The Coyotes under Chayka’s watch were not good, finishing out of the playoffs in his first three years. Arizona made the postseason in his fourth year, but he had resigned on the eve of the playoffs and later was suspended by the NHL for conduct detrimental to the league.

Sounds perfect for Vegas.
 
zeke said:
I think Chayka is definitely a data-driven guy, and that's a big step up for us. I think his performance in arizona is underrated mostly because the nerds felt he embarassed them, while really arizona was just a godawful and bankrupt organization before and after him on so many levels i find it hard to blame him for so many players underperforming what they had done previously / what they would become soon after (especially after leaving arizona).

He's now going to go from working for the cheapest org in hockey to having limitless funds. I think it'll work out.


sure seems that Sundin is not really inside the chain of command in terms of personnel decisions, but is focused only on the more intangible aspects of the franchise, which sounds more than fine to me.
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I think just having a reasonably data driven decision making process by default puts you at average or better as a NHL GM.
 
Leafin' said:
Hiring Gillis would have been a step in the right direction regarding keeping Pelley away from hockey ops. The announced hiring as it stands shows that he’ll have his hands all over decision making.

Richard Peddie 2.0
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Yeah, I think it's crystal clear now why Gillis was seemingly dropped very early in the process.

The #1 item on Pelley's wish-list was someone that'll let him keep his hands in hockey ops.
 
he was too hands-off with treliving! he left him completely alone.

thank god he decided to actually involve himself a little bit on deadline day.
 
Yeah there is no reason to think Pelley wants to be involved in hockey decisions. In 3 years he's stayed far away from the team. Him sitting in on the operation at the deadline was a good thing, not a bad thing. He saw first hand that Tre can't be GM. Firing him was objectively the right move.

If he just wanted someone that would defer to him there was no point in firing Tre in the first place.
 
Feeling pretty great about this tbh. Chayka being the man and above Mats makes all the difference here. They're putting the data driven dude completely in charge, hard to ask for more than this.
 
Preston said:
They're putting the data driven dude completely in charge, hard to ask for more than this.
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If my ask from this process could have been boiled to a single point, it's that I wanted data driven decision making on all levels to be in charge. It's what had me so hopeful after the Pelley presser.

This appears to be that, even if it's not my preferred iteration of that.
 
Preston said:
Feeling pretty great about this tbh. Chayka being the man and above Mats makes all the difference here. They're putting the data driven dude completely in charge, hard to ask for more than this.
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One could have hired the best data guy, not a failure who was suspended for job shopping while gainfully employed.
 
thehabhater said:
not a failure who was suspended for job shopping while gainfully employed.
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This was a red flag to me at first, but the more I looked into it, meh. Meruelo was a brutal, brutal idiot to work for and the stories between the two parties vary pretty massively on the crux detail. Chayka was given permission to talk to the New Jersey Devils for a job as long as the GM title or POHO wasn't part of it as Meruelo considered those lateral moves. New Jersey offered him a job that involved more hockey ops responsibility than Meruelo claims he was aware of (Meruelo was originally told by Josh Harris that it was a role overseeing all of the sports teams in Harris' portfolio) so Meruelo blocked the move. The Chayka side of the argument is that he was offered the position that Harris had gotten permission to speak to him about.

The Coyotes were a bankrupt clownshow and Chayka was shitty that the move got blocked (after he was given permission to seek the position) so he resigned. Because he resigned while under contract, Gary suspended him for breaching his obligation to the club.
 
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