Hurricanes Hire Eric Tulsky As Stat Analyst

The Carolina Hurricanes reported on Thursday that they have hired Eric Tulsky as a full-time hockey analyst.  Tulsky will provide and analyze data to assist the hockey operations department and coaching staff.  He worked in this position on a part-time basis last season.

At one time, Tulsky wrote for Broad Street Hockey and was so impressive that SB Nation created a special stat site for him called Outnumbered. His very first post for BSH was a fanpost, so yes, people do read those and pay attention to them.

Tulsky holds a B.A. in both Chemistry and Physics and has a Ph.D. in Chemistry.  He had this to say as reported by Travis at BSH.

"It's something I wrestled with for sure," he said. "Part of what I loved about my work as a chemist was the feeling that every project I worked on was something with the potential to really have an enormous impact. That being said, working with an NHL team is an amazing opportunity, and it was something I just couldn't pass up. I really like the people I'm working with and I'm excited to see what we can do."

Kudos to the Hurricanes for not only hiring a stat guru but for making it public and reporting it in a typical press release.  Several other teams have made similar hires but for some reason keep that information held closely.

Good luck to Eric.  We will try to get more information about this later in the season.

The team's press release follows:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Aug. 20, 2015

HURRICANES HIRE ERIC TULSKY AS HOCKEY ANALYST

Will provide data to assist hockey department and coaching staff

RALEIGH, NC – Ron Francis, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes, today announced that the team has named Eric Tulsky to the position of Hockey Analyst. As Hockey Analyst, Tulsky will provide and analyze data to assist the hockey operations department and coaching staff. Tulsky worked for the team during the 2014-15 season on a part-time basis.

"Eric is an extremely intelligent person and has been an innovator in the field of advanced analytics," said Francis. "We found the information he provided last season to be extremely valuable and are glad that he will be with us on a full-time basis."

Tulsky has been publishing his advanced hockey statistical analysis since 2011, when he began writing for BroadstreetHockey.com. He also contributed to NHLNumbers.com prior to launching his own website through SBNation, Outnumbered. Tulsky has been a featured panelist for MIT’s annual Sports Analytics Conference and his hockey analysis work has also been published in The Washington Post and fivethirtyeight.com.

A Philadelphia native, Tulsky holds a B.A. in chemistry and physics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in chemistry from UC-Berkeley. He also conducted a two-year, post-doctoral study at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C., and worked in nanotechnology for 12 years. Tulsky’s research has helped enable unique nanotechnology solutions to problems in DNA sequencing, solar energy, displays and energy storage. He and his wife, Karen Sosa, reside in Chapel Hill with their son, Seth (9).