Illinois hockey has secret weapon

Members of the Illini hockey team jeered at and joked about Tom O’Brien during his postgame interview.

“Oh my God,” winger Eric Cruickshank said. “First interview of your career?”

O’Brien’s only response was a chuckle, because as an assistant coach, he isn’t used to media attention. However, he is very deserving of the spotlight: he had an important role in Illinois’ sweep of Oklahoma. The Illini’s success against the Sooners demonstrated O’Brien’s value to the team.

Similar to the sabermetrics system that has revolutionized professional baseball, O’Brien has developed a system to track goaltender statistics. O’Brien uses those numbers to build practice plans based on game performance weighed against all the other goalies in the ACHA.

“Just looking at someone’s save percentage, even if it’s save percentage on a particular shot, isn’t useful unless you know everyone else’s,” O’Brien said. “So, we found a way to do that and kind of design an algorithm that designs practices around that.”

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O’Brien began developing his method a couple of years ago, but his background in hockey goes back much further.

Growing up, O’Brien bounced around the Midwest and Northeast, playing for various hockey teams in the United States Hockey League, North American Hockey League and the Eastern Hockey League. He eventually caught the eye of Notre Dame and was offered to play goaltender for the Irish.

In 2010, O’Brien graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in physics, playing all four years during his undergraduate studies. After graduation, O’Brien knew he wanted to continue to be involved with hockey and his mom said she would allow it — on the condition that he apply to graduate school.

After applying to five schools, O’Brien accepted an offer to study and be a research and teaching assistant under Professor Chuang and Professor Dallesasse in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) program at Illinois.

That was when O’Brien was reunited with Illini head coach Nick Fabbrini. The two had played bantams, a 15U minor hockey league, in Chicago together. Fabbrini was the newly appointed head coach of the Illini and knew O’Brien would be a great asset to the team.

“It worked out with his ability to commit to us,” Fabbrini said. “We’re really lucky and happy to have him.”

During his time at Illinois, O’Brien began developing his algorithm to help goaltenders. He decided to create it in a software program after taking a statistical finance class. He ended up dropping the class, but the concept for the algorithm stuck.

“It was something to do for fun,” O’Brien said. “I’ve been finished with my credits for five semesters, so I have nothing else to do, but go to class, do research and (coach hockey).”

After a couple of years to develop, his method seems to be working. Illinois’ starting goaltender Joe Olen is currently representing Team USA at the World University Games as a result of his successful season recording a save percentage of .918 and goals against average of 2.77.

Backup, Zev Grumet-Morris is 7-3-1 on the season, shutting out two opponents, while third-string goaltender Zachary Danna recorded a shutout in his only start of the season against Indiana.

Together, the three goaltenders have recorded four shutouts and have combined for a save percentage of .913 and goals against average of 2.59.

The three, however, have their own playing styles and tendencies. O’Brien sets up practice in accordance with each goaltender’s specific skill set in mind.

“He is just a wizard at being able to pick those key things that need to be picked out and design practice around them,” Grumet-Morris said.

With the CSCHL tournament two weeks away and the ACHA National tournament a month away, the Illini have to utilize O’Brien’s method more than ever. Illinois looks to take advantage of all the time it may or may not have left with O’Brien as assistant coach.

Now in his fifth year as a graduate student at Illinois, when asked what he eventually wants to do with electrical engineering, O’Brien is still not sure what his future holds.

“That’s a good question that my parents ask me all the time,” O’Brien said. “I haven’t come up with a good answer for them yet.”

But one thing is for certain.

“All I really want to do is coach goalies. It’s hard to explain that to someone.”

Matt can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @MattGertsmeier.