MONTREAL — Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes announced Thursday the appointment of Philippe Desaulniers as chief technology officer, hockey analytics and Miranda McMillan as hockey data analyst.

You will work under the supervision of the Director of the Department of Advanced Statistical Analysis, Christopher Boucher.

A graduate of Polytechnique Montréal, Desaulniers has been an expert in the technology field for more than 25 years, working on the first applications of artificial intelligence in the mining sector and engaging in Montreal’s aerospace and telecommunications technology centers before moving into the world of large-scale data analysis .

After several years developing analytics software and artificial intelligence systems at Averna and Radialpoint, Desaulniers took up the challenge of the startup world by collaborating with the founders of Sportlogiq, where he led the way by combining cutting-edge AI with groundbreaking approaches to ice hockey analytics took on the company’s core technology engineering and created a revolutionary ice hockey data analysis system that, within a few years, became the reference standard for advanced statistical tools for NHL teams.

McMillan, 32, started playing hockey at the age of eight. She played for the Dalhousie University Tigers for five seasons, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree with combined hours in math and statistics.

McMillan also has experience behind the bench, having been the assistant coach and head coach of Halifax’s U18 AAA women’s team from 2013-2017.

Before joining Canadians Advanced Stats Analytics Department, a native of Truro, Nova Scotia, spent nearly six years as a statistician and data team manager at Kinduct Technologies in Halifax.