Revenge Of The Nerds, NHL Style: Analytics-Heavy GMs Pulled Off The Rantanen Blockbuster

Long gone are the days when a guy had to bleed on an NHL sweater in order to be a GM in the league. Those GMs who didn't are making huge deals, including the Rantanen one.

As far as trades go in the NHL, they don't get much bigger and more blockbustery than the deal last Friday that sent Mikko Rantanen and Taylor Hall to the Carolina Hurricanes and Martin Necas and Jack Drury to the Colorado Avalanche.

And what was one of the common themes in that deal? Well, you probably haven't thought of it, but it was facilitated by three GMs - Eric Tulsky in Carolina, Chris MacFarland in Colorado and Kyle Davidson in Chicago - who are analytics-bent outsiders.

And when you add Kyle Dubas in Pittsburgh and Julien BriseBois in Tampa Bay into the mix, you realize that these outsiders bring with them a willingness to make big deals to help their teams win Stanley Cups.

So if we all agree that we love big transactions, if that's what gets our blood rushing as fans, then having numbers nerds involved is a good thing for hockey.

Here's more in today's video column:

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