{"id":609993,"date":"2026-04-17T10:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/609993\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T10:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:15:11","slug":"devils-name-sunny-mehta-general-manager-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/609993\/","title":{"rendered":"Devils Name Sunny Mehta General Manager \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

This evening the New Jersey Devils shared that<\/a> Sunny Mehta<\/a> has been named their new general manager, sixth in franchise history, replacing Tom Fitzgerald<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mehta, 48, had been serving as Assistant General Manager and Director of Analytics for the Florida Panthers since 2023, helping lead them to a level of unprecedented success with back-to-back Stanley Cups. He returns to Newark, the first NHL job of his career, where he\u2019d been from 2014-2018 as Director of Hockey Analytics.<\/p>\n

Having grown up in Wyckoff, New Jersey as a young Devils fan, Mehta\u2019s path to leading an NHL franchise is a fascinating one. An analytics wizard, he did play the game, a varsity skater for Ramapo High School in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. Still, it\u2019s quite different from the previous GM Fitzgerald, and his over 1,000 NHL appearances.<\/p>\n

After the long-standing Lou Lamoriello<\/a> era, which spanned across four different decades (1987-2015), New Jersey experienced more change in their front office than usual, with Ray Shero<\/a> and Fitzgerald both coming and going since. Now Mehta is back into the fold, bridging the gap having worked with the team back in an entirely different era, where he\u2019ll hope to clean up an impressive roster which has some flaws.<\/p>\n

With his playing career over after high school, Mehta attended the University of Miami\u2019s Frost School of Music, studying Jazz Guitar and graduating in 2000. He became a professional musician, also a successful poker player who co-authored successful books on strategy within the card game. Eventually obtaining his Master\u2019s in Data Science from City University of New York, needless to say, Mehta\u2019s background is fully evident of a departure from typical within the National Hockey League.<\/p>\n

Guitar or cards aside, Mehta\u2019s hockey resume speaks for itself. Still under age 50, he is a two-time Stanley Cup Champion, spearheading the first full-time analytics department in the NHL. If there\u2019s any doubt on his ability to evaluate talent, Mehta\u2019s input helped New Jersey land one of the biggest draft steals in recent memory. His model ranked Jesper Bratt<\/a> as third in the 2016 draft, behind just Auston Matthews<\/a> and Patrik Laine<\/a>, the top two picks that year. If anyone shrugged off the analytical guru at the draft table a decade ago, Mehta has the last laugh, as New Jersey eventually heeded his advice, choosing the Swedish winger in the sixth round. Since then, he\u2019s blossomed into a top scorer for the Devils, currently ranking fifth in total points out of 2016 draftees, not bad for 162nd overall.<\/p>\n

Moving on to Florida, where he worked alongside general manager Bill Zito<\/a>, Mehta has received much praise for his impact. Florida\u2019s ability to assemble a perfectly-structured team with a number of savvy moves brought them a level of success nobody could have anticipated a decade ago. Earlier this month, Mehta was outlined in an article by TSN\u2019s Mark Masters<\/a>, where Panther Mackie Samoskevich<\/a> said \u201cEverything he touches turns to gold\u201d.<\/p>\n

Along with a reunion with a prospect he sought out, Mehta inherits a roster which is mostly intact, for better or for worse. Across their entire forward core, only Evgenii Dadonov<\/a> and Zack MacEwen<\/a> are pending unrestricted free agents, neither of whom made an impact this year. It\u2019s much the same on the back end, with only Dennis Cholowski<\/a> having an expiring contract. In net, Jacob Markstr\u00f6m<\/a> and Jake Allen<\/a> are locked up for the foreseeable future. The former had his worst professional season in a decade, but the hope will be that the towering Swede can turn it around somehow, although he\u2019s now 36 years old.<\/p>\n

The situation presents an intriguing challenge for Mehta, who must shake things up after a disappointing campaign, where his Devils came out hot but fell flat after a series of unfortunate events. None of which were more vexing than top scorer Jack Hughes<\/a>\u2018 freak hand injury which happened in a restaurant and cost him 25% of the season. There\u2019s little need for some huge free agent spending spree, nor a massive retool, as few teams offer a one-two punch down the middle as young and formidable as the Devils between Hughes and Nico Hischier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mehta\u2019s work will be cut out for him in fixing Fitzgerald\u2019s attempts to supplement the young core, which made sense at the time, but proved futile. Finding a way to move on from at least one of Dougie Hamilton<\/a> and Timo Meier<\/a> could be the first order of business, but it\u2019s not an ideal scenario given their trade protection and contracts which are worth $9MM and $8.8MM, respectively. Hamilton was most recently linked to Utah<\/a>, back in February, as there\u2019s always a market for a tall righty with high offensive abilities, contract aside.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll also have the opportunity to consider a change behind the bench, as head coach Sheldon Keefe<\/a>\u2018s future seems to be up in the air.<\/a> However, the 33-year-old has a modern approach to the game which has parallels to Mehta\u2019s mindset, and Keefe deserves some leniency from a year so lost to injury.<\/p>\n

With their season coming to an end back on Tuesday, Mehta will get right to work, with the 2026 draft just over a month away. As of now, he\u2019s projected to have the 11th overall pick, which could shift slightly after tonight\u2019s final games, or if he is dealt a favorable hand at the draft lottery on May 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This evening the New Jersey Devils shared that Sunny Mehta has been named their new general manager, sixth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,749,4247,82,223498],"class_list":{"0":"post-609993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-new-jersey-devils","11":"tag-newsstand","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-sunny-mehta"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}