Mandrycky Named Assistant GM

When announced during a weekly Kraken all-staff meeting that Alexandra Mandrycky will be the team's newest assistant general manager, everyone cheered wholeheartedly and sincerely for a respected teammate across all reaches of the organization. Upon reflection, no one was surprised about the good news for Mandrycky and the team on the ice. She's earned the promotion.
"She is obviously smart, she's knowledgeable about the sport, she works hard," said Kraken General Manager Ron Francis earlier this week. "Alex has been in a lot of our discussions already, contributing in a lot of different areas. It was the right thing to do. Right from day one, she took this opportunity to be assistant GM based on her effort and performance."

For her part, Mandrycky is all about contributing to improve the NHL team and building a second-to-none player development system and prospects pool. Her new expanded duties include overseeing the amateur scouting group, working closely with director of amateur scouting Robert Kron.
Mandrycky did stop long enough this week to reflect on a professional journey that started with watching Buffalo Sabres games in 2009 with her boyfriend-now-husband, Christian. The couple met when Christian's family moved from Buffalo to Atlanta, connecting through high school rowing and both attending Georgia Tech as engineering students. She majored in industrial engineering. Christian pursued bioengineering and is now a postdoctoral fellow and neuromuscular disease researcher with the University of Washington's Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine.
"He didn't know what he was getting himself into," said Mandrycky, gently laughing. "If you would have asked me eight years ago when I started working at hockey, if I felt like this [becoming an assistant GM at age 31] was a possibility, I would have laughed at the time.
"It's simply an incredible honor to get to work for a hockey team. It is a privilege to have the [new] title because I think it does say something about the sort of ability to have an impact on the organization and to have the trust [from Francis and ownership]. It was never really what I set out to do. I'm always just looking to make us better as a team and franchise. It's not about me."
To wit, Mandrycky next pointed out the many contributions of Namita Nandakumar, Dani Chu and Eric Mathiasen in the research and development analytics group. It is established and emphatic that analytics has an equal part in evaluating players at the pro and amateur levels across disciplines.
"It says a lot about the impact that we can have on every group," said Mandrycky. "We aren't just sitting in a corner kind of working on things by ourselves. The research and development team serves all the different areas. Whether that's pro scouting, amateur scouting, the coaching staff, strength and conditioning, you name it. We attempt to help everyone succeed in those roles to the best of our ability."
While six women have now been promoted to assistant GM roles with NHL teams (including former Kraken pro scout Cammi Granato accepting a job with Vancouver), Mandrycky is the first woman in league history to be promoted when breaking into the sport via analytics, rising through the ranks from working on the highly respected War-on-Ice website for two years upon graduation from Georgia Tech to being hired as an analyst by the Minnesota Wild in 2015 before joining the Kraken. Young women and girls everywhere with interests in both hockey and STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math) are no doubt taking note.
Francis is quick to remind Mandrycky was hired by Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke and ownership even a half month before he was named GM in late July 2019. One of Mandrycky's first tasks was to evaluate Francis' record and potential as general manager of the expansion franchise that didn't even have a team name as yet.
She determined ex-Carolina GM Francis never faced salary-cap issues while building a successful team on ice and his trade and free agent acquisitions, draft choices and re-signed players represented 80 percent of postseason scoring in a deep Stanley Cup Playoffs run by the Carolina Hurricanes that spring plus an American Hockey League championship for the affiliate Charlotte Checkers.
When Mandrycky was hired, CEO Leiweke made it clear the future GM would have final say on whether she stayed with the organization.
"It didn't scare her away," said Francis. "I sat down with her and said this is my vision, what I'd like to see. Alex was in agreement. We proceeded to go out and get some really good people to be on our staff. She's got a lot of expertise in a lot of areas."
Mandrycky appreciates both Francis' belief in her and the opportunity to learn and grow with the hockey team's leader.
"He's a Hall of Famer, yet he loves the details of everything," said Mandrycky. "That's whether it's talking with myself and my team about analytics or talking with our scouts about what they're seeing and evaluating with their eyes. He wants all the information. That's something that you know I really respect when he's going through a decision-making process. He listens to sort of every side.
"It's sort of funny to look back and think back [to July 2019]. It's one thing he didn't kick me out then. But it's a privilege being asked to stay."