The Edmonton Oilers have added a new face to their hockey operations staff for next season.
Though the team has made no official announcement, an update to the Oilers’ official staff directory has shown that the team has hired Erik Elenz as a video and analytics coaching coordinator.
Elenz spent the last two seasons as a video coach for the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds in the Seattle Kraken organization, where he won two Western Conference championships in 2023 and 2024.
As first reported by @BlueBullet1981, it appears the #Oilers have hired Erik Elenz as a video coach heading into next season.
Elenz, 24, spent the last two seasons with the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds.
(Photo from official Oilers staff directory) pic.twitter.com/18ndpEFOtx
— Preston Hodgkinson (@NHLHodgkinson) July 25, 2024
The 24-year-old Elenz is an up-and-comer in the realm of analytics and video coaching, having had a few very successful years in the AHL. Before then, he worked with the University of Vermont in the NCAA as a video coach.
His duties with the Firebirds involved compiling on-ice hockey data and metrics as well as doing pre-scouting so that the coaching staff could have as much information as possible on upcoming opponents.
“I’m constantly tagging things, and then I’ve created a spreadsheet in our program that auto-populates data,” Elenz said of his duties in a recent feature on the AHL’s website. “In the NHL, they get that data live on the bench with tablets.
“Here, it’s all us. If they want, say, live faceoff data, that’s on us, and we communicate it through the radio. As quickly as I can, during radio or TV timeouts, I’ll have ready for them about 20 different numbers that they care about.”
The hire seems to be in line with Oilers CEO Jeff Jackson’s desire to shift the organization to be more modern and open to embracing things like advanced analytics. The team added Michael Parkatti as their senior director of data and analytics last summer as well as Kalle Larsen as the team’s senior director of player development earlier this summer.
Given his title, it should be expected that Elenz will work closely with those two this upcoming season, as well as with Noah Segall, the Oilers’ primary video coach, and the entirety of Kris Knobloach’s staff behind the bench.