Tim Barnes recently received a major promotion from the Washington Capitals.<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s longtime director of hockey analytics is now an assistant general manager, joining draft maestro Ross Mahoney and salary cap expert Don Fishman with the same title. The 2025-26 campaign marks Barnes\u2019 11th season with the organization after initially being hired by the Capitals as a part-time consultant in 2014-15.<\/p>\n
The Athletic\u2019s Murat Ates was the first to notice Barnes\u2019 new role on the club\u2019s updated management page<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAs director of hockey analytics, Barnes was instrumental in incorporating data-driven decision-making into the day-to-day processes of the hockey operations department, overseeing the development of player valuation systems, trader tools for management, predictive frameworks for roster portfolio term risk, and technology to convert the insights of hockey operations management, scouts, and coaches into actionable metrics,\u201d the Capitals\u2019 description of Barnes\u2019 previous role reads<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Capitals\u2019 management structure sees the three assistant GMs \u2014 Barnes, Mahoney, and Fishman \u2014 report to Chris Patrick, the Capitals\u2019 senior vice president and general manager. Brian MacLellan, the team\u2019s previous GM, oversees them all as the team\u2019s president of hockey operations.<\/p>\n Barnes, who previously used the pseudonym Vic Ferrari, was a pioneer in advanced analytics<\/a> through his now-defunct hockey statistics blog, \u201cIrreverent Oilers Fans.\u201d There, he would coin the term \u201cCorsi,\u201d now used to represent shot attempts, and formulate many of the methods widely used today to evaluate individual players.<\/p>\n Since Barnes\u2019 hiring, the Capitals have enjoyed significant success, winning the Metropolitan Division six times and capturing two Presidents\u2019 Trophies as the league\u2019s best team over the last 11 seasons. The Capitals also captured their first Stanley Cup championship in 2018. The club also appeared to avoid a complete rebuild at the end of Alex Ovechkin\u2019s career, successfully undergoing a massive retooling of their roster in the summer of 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n During that offseason, the Capitals also made league-wide waves when they purchased the popular salary cap website CapFriendly<\/a> and shut it down for public use. The primary goal of the acquisition was to build off the existing infrastructure, incorporate their in-house analytics, and establish a valuable interface they could use moving forward<\/a>.<\/p>\n When they bought the platform, the organization also brought in the three Davis brothers, Chris, Ryan, and Jamie, who ran the website. Currently, the brothers comprise three of the four analytics-based staff members listed in the Capitals\u2019 directory. Jamie holds the title of director of hockey technology, while Chris and Ryan are listed as hockey technology assistants.<\/p>\n H.T. Lenz has now assumed Barnes\u2019s former position as director of hockey analytics. The Vienna, Virginia native was a standout forward at the University of Vermont and also played one year (2014-15) of professional hockey with the ECHL\u2019s Utah Grizzlies. Lenz has been with the organization for just over 10 years, starting as a hockey operations assistant at the age of 26.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t