General Manager Sunny Mehta is in an unenviable position.
The man who has taken the helm of the Devils has inherited a mess from the former regime. The Devils maybe had the talent and potential to be a playoff team last season, but injuries and poor play impacted that and left the group on the outside looking in when the regular season concluded. The same came the for the team’s top affiliate in Utica, as they fell a point short of qualifying for the postseason on the last day of regular season play.
Utica may have ended the season on a high note, but last season was the second one in a row where the team played so poorly to start the campaign that it all but guaranteed missing the playoffs.
With both teams missing out on the opportunity to play for their respective championships, things needed to change for both clubs. It’s not an easy position for a GM to be in, assuming control of an underachieving NHL club that’s supposed to be in a contention window while also trying to rebuild a depleted pipeline. Usually, a team has at least some success at either the AHL (rebuilding) level or the NHL (competing) level; they may not be winning it all, but either the team is a consistent playoff team or the pipeline looks like it is building towards something special.
The reason Mehta is in said unenviable position is because right now, the Devils don’t appear to be doing either of those things. Since the team qualified for the postseason in 2023, the future was supposed to be brighter for this Devils core. Yet all that has happened since has been two seasons of missing the playoffs and one season where the team looked outmatched in the first round, only winning one game off a double overtime goal from a guy who’s no longer here. And now that player has been traded for picks in both an attempt to improve the prospect pool while also alleviating a logjam at defense.
Mehta will most likely have to deal with some scrutiny early on in his tenure. I haven’t seen much about it yet, but his goaltending “solution” for this season can’t be entirely popular. It may be a necessity, however, until something shifts with the goalie market or when there could be cap space for the Devils and better players available next summer. There’s still question marks elsewhere on the ice, particularly if that pesky injury bug rears its ugly head again. It will be interesting to see how the Devils piece things together this season, particularly if there’s more than one injury on the back end. The forward depth might be able to survive some guys missing small periods of time; the rest of the team is more questionable for sure.
Going back to the prospect pool side of things, Mehta’s also still technically “down” draft picks for 2027, as the Devils have moved their third, fourth and sixth round picks. While the additional first he picked up has more value, it’s still less chances/selections for the team to improve that group in the next draft. Sunny did well to grab another first for 2028, but not only is that two seasons away, it’s also not likely that player comes in and helps the NHL or AHL team right away. There’s definitely a few interesting players that the Devils drafted who have yet to be inked to their entry level deals, and perhaps that will be one route Mehta takes to start improving both Jersey and Utica’s fortunes.
There’s not going to be an easy answer for Mehta in his tenure as GM, at least not until he gets out from under some of the mess left by the Fitzgerald regime. There will be moves that are heavily scrutinized. There will be some unpopular ones at first that eventually become popular, and vice-versa as well. Sunny appears to have a vision of what he wants the Devils to be. The goal now becomes to filly recognize said vision and hope it returns the Devils to prominence.
Do you think Mehta’s moves so far will help to improve New Jersey and Utica? Do you feel Mehta needs to prioritize the pipeline for sustained future success? Should his greater focus be on finding the missing pieces for New Jersey? Leave any and all thoughts and comments down below and thanks as always for reading!
