Jamison Coyle, Mike Johnson, and Brian Boyle share their reactions on NHL Network to the New Jersey Devils’ decision to hire Sunny Mehta as their next General Manager. From their perspective, this move brings valuable insight to a Devils team aiming to reach the next level.
Jamison Coyle remarked, “It’s funny. We talked at the end of last segment about teams in the offseason and what’s going to happen. How’s this for some breaking news, the Devils have nothing but blue skies and sunny days ahead. ‘Jersey, We brought Sunny Home.’ Sunny Mehta is now the Devils General Manager. He comes back home. He’s from Totowa, New Jersey (Wyckoff, NJ), so it’s a homecoming for him. And what do you guys make of this vacancy being filled as the General Manager for the New Jersey Devils now belongs to Sunny Mehta?”
Mike Johnson added, “He was the hot candidate who hadn’t been a GM before among the new candidates. He was the guy. Fascinating career. He was a professional poker player, obviously very bright, numbers, math, an analytically driven guy, worked for Jersey before, and then went down to Florida.”
Johnson continued, “And I think what people will really like about him is, yes, he’s got the brain and the analytics component to him. But he also saw Florida and how they incorporate what he does and how he sees it, with maybe a more traditional hockey viewpoint, without the numbers and the need for chemistry and culture and all those different kinds of things. Toughness in different ways that are maybe harder to quantify.”
He concluded, “He had his experience, and then he was privy to the experience of the Florida Panthers and a winner twice in a row. So, good for him and great for Jersey. Like, this is going to be, Jersey kind of becoming a destination. Like, that’s a big hire. Like, Toronto was very interested in him. Not like any team that was going to have a GM spot wouldn’t be very interested in him. And the fact that he landed back in Jersey speaks well for the Devils and Sunny.”
Brian Boyle stated, “Sunny Mehta is, he’s just a good man. You run into him, super positive guy. Obviously, he works extremely hard. Everyone on staff in Florida has to work extremely hard. That’s the standard that Bill Zito has set. And I’ve been talking to a couple of people. Brett Peterson’s another guy. He’s just like, it’s a grind every single day, but it has to be.”
Boyle elaborated, “Like we said, Johnny, it’s the last four teams, and certainly the last two teams remaining play a certain style of hockey that brings out more will than skill. A lot of times the skill is still certainly there. But when you’re a hockey player in the NHL, and everybody can kind of relate to this, I was, I’m not a huge analytics guy. I don’t like to apply it to how I look at the game, but I try to look at it a different way, because I don’t know if you ever played with a guy that you’re like, how does he see the game that way? It’s just sort of a different lens. You’re looking through a different angle. You want to understand your teammates as best you can when you’re on the ice. Why does the defenseman make this play? How can I get open for him?”
He continued, “There’s a number of different ways you can look at building a roster. There’s a number of different ways and different, I guess, data points, or whatever you want to call it, that you could address to try and build up a team. It doesn’t have to be a lifer or a 70-year NHL guy that’s been around and did it one way the whole time.”
Boyle concluded, “It’s evolved, and I think staffs in general have gotten bigger. I think you’re still going to have the great product that we’re about to witness in these playoffs, with the physicality and all that, but it’s going to be interesting to see the skill levels rising. Sunny Mehta is going to bring, I think, to a team that already has a tremendous amount of skill, another layer to it, where it’s going to be more efficient. And the Devils who’ve been, I thought, knocking on the door every, every September, yeah, this is the year. Maybe this is here next year.”
