Last night, news started to circulate that the Colorado Avalanche were on the verge of announcing a new hiring. The addition to the front office that would make the organization “smarter”.

It turns out that was in reference to the hiring of Dawson Sprigings, a 23-year old analytics consultant from Toronto who played at Wesleyan University in Divison III.

Sprigings is known around hockey twitter (as @DTMAboutHeart) and by many in the analytics consulting world, but many fans might not have heard of him. He’s known for his work on developing a WAR model similar to that used in baseball. If you don’t know it, this is a very good introduction to his work.

Though he’s known for his work with hockey, Sprigings is expected to work for Kroenke Sports to do analysis for a number of their teams - particularly the Nuggets and Rapids.

This hire won’t move the needle much for the team in the short term - but at the very least it shows progressive thought from the Avalanche. One would assume that Dawson will work alongside the other consultant (who wishes to remain anonymous) that was hired back in September to replace the analyst that moved on from last season.

If nothing else, these types of hires show that a team isn’t afraid to collect as much data as they possibly can - whether they use that data to their advantage is another story.

Congratulations Dawson. Welcome to the organization.