CMU grad reflects on Penguins hiring
Ventura is eager to aid in busiest time of operations
Sam Ventura’s career slowly has been creeping in this direction for several years.
Ventura, 29, was hired by the Penguins Friday as the team’s new full-time director of hockey research.
He had spent the past two years consulting with the team after earning his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate in statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. While he was pursuing those degrees, Ventura co-founded the hockey analytics website war-on-ice.com, one of the foremost advanced statistics sites of its time.
After he earned his doctorate, he took on a role as a visiting assistant professor of statistics at CMU.
All that is to say, the promotion to the team’s fulltime hockey operations staff was, in his words, “not unexpected” given his career trajectory.
But when Ventura, a Swissvale native and Woodland Hills High School graduate, takes a longer view of the situation, he’s able to appreciate it a bit more.
“It’s a little surreal, I guess, at times,” he said. “When I put myself in the shoes of 10-year-old Sam, it’s a little strange.
“Starting with working on the website, I had sort of gotten more involved with talking to people in hockey, which sort of led to talking with people at the Penguins. It’s been small steps from there, moving into a consulting role and taking on more responsibilities. It’s been a really, really fun experience so far.”
That experience will continue in his full-time role. Ventura said his objective is to provide quantitative and statistical thinking to all aspects of the Penguins hockey operations — from player acquisition and management to in-game strategy.
He has been doing that as a consultant for the past few years, but the new title will allow him to expand his role within the team.
“I think the biggest thing is just being around the organization every day, as opposed to just periodically, is going to allow me to have my finger on the pulse of everything that’s going on around the organization,” Ventura said. “It’s just going to allow me to do my job better. I think that’s probably the thing I’m most excited about, just being around and being able to be a little bit more hands-on in terms of what I’m able to do.”
Ventura’s shift to full time also represents an elevated commitment from the Penguins to the analytics side of the game, which has increased in scope and importance over the past few years.
Jason Karmanos, thenvice president of hockey operations, played a large role in bringing Ventura aboard as a consultant in 2015. Karmanos recently was promoted to assistant general manager and will oversee Ventura’s department of hockey research.
“My experience is that there’s been buy-in from day one,” Ventura said. “It’s nice. I wouldn’t have accepted this position if I felt like my voice wasn’t being heard, or if what I had to say wasn’t valued.”
Ventura credits general manager Jim Rutherford with being completely on board with embracing the analytical side of the game.
“It’s been like that from day one, which is great,” Ventura said. “That’s led by Jim Rutherford. I think he does a fantastic job of taking in the perspectives of people from all different parts of the organization and making optimal decisions from there.”
Ventura’s immediate future will be focused on the Penguins offseason. Player acquisition is part of his job description, and that became the front office’s No. 1 concern as soon as the champagne dried from their Stanley Cup celebration.
The Las Vegas expansion draft is this week, followed by the NHL draft Friday and free agency beginning July 1. If Ventura is looking forward to this new role, he doesn’t have to wait long to dive right in.
“The offseason’s the busiest time for hockey operations, and it’s definitely the busiest time for someone doing statistical analysis,” he said. “This is where all the interesting stuff happens.”