Dave Hakstol showed interest in analytics as coach of North Dakota

Dave Hakstol approached the economics department about statistics analysis for the hockey team while he was coaching at UND. Fun fact

— Nick Lindner (@Lindner9) May 18, 2015

There's obviously not too much to go off of here, but that's still good information to have. Lindner, who tweeted that information, is an econ student at the University of North Dakota. We can also confirm that the team has used consultants to help them with analytics while Dave Hakstol was their coach.

Some coaches show no interest in utilizing analytics. Personally, I'm of the opinion -- and Ron Hextall is of this opinion as well -- that coaches and their staffs should use every tool they can to get the most out of their players, to design their systems, and to ultimately make the smartest decisions they can.

It's nice knowing that Hakstol, at the very least, has enough interest in this stuff to go out of his way to look at how it might help his decision making. That's step one. How one uses that data is step two, and whether he'll look to do the same type of analysis at the NHL level is another question altogether.