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Liam Rosenior's time at Chelsea started strong but ended in decline.
Sunny Mehta was introduced as the new general manager of the New Jersey Devils, receiving a positive reception during his press conference. He emphasized a period of assessment for players and coaches before making decisions on the team's future.
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Sunny Mehta indicated that there will be a period of assessment for players, coaches, and staff before making any decisions.
Players Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, Connor Brown, and others, along with head coach Sheldon Keefe, were in attendance.
Sunny Mehta is a lifelong Devils fan who grew up in Wyckoff, NJ, and has a history of successful player evaluations, including Jesper Bratt.
The media generally reacted positively, noting his thoughtful responses and comfort in addressing questions without making controversial statements.

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As Amanda Stein noted on Twitter, Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, Connor Brown, Brenden Dillon, Jake Allen, Stefan Noesen, and Johnathan Kovacevic were among the players in attendance. Head coach Sheldon Keefe was also in attendance. I donât know how much I would read into in terms of players that werenât there, but I do think its important for Hischier and Hughes, the leaders of the team, to be there as a show of public support. And I do think its notable in Hischierâs case seeing as heâs up for a contract this summer. I wouldnât say that Hischier being there today is a sign that heâs chomping at the bit to sign on the dotted line and cement himself as a Devil for life once heâs eligible to do so on July 1. But the alternative way of looking at it would be if he was that disgusted with the organization as a whole, it wouldâve been really easy to stay away. It wouldâve been really easy to cite a scheduling conflict while heâs sitting on a beach in the Caribbean sipping drinks. Hischier did not do that. He was there. Itâs something to keep in mind as we inch closer to July 1st and we see where the Devils and Hischier are in regards to a long-term commitment.
Mehta mentioned the now famous Jesper Bratt story that youâve probably heard ad nauseum by now. The one where Mehtaâs model had Bratt #3 out of all of the players in the 2016 class on his draft board. He also mentioned that âthereâs probably other players I had in my Top 10 that are playing in Austria somewhereâ. I bring that up because drafting is hard. Itâs really difficult to project what 18 year old young men are going to be years from now. Even the teams that we think are the best at drafting have more than their fair share of misses. If there was a simple answer as to why doesnât this team draft better, more teams would be better at it and weâd have more than the â20 to 25 percentâ of drafted players that Mehta referenced making it to the NHL. Part of why I like the idea of hiring someone like Mehta as GM is the hope that heâll be able to repeat that success with Bratt in the future. But the truth of the matter is that there isnât a Bratt sitting there in the 6th round every year. We probably shouldnât be expect Mehta to find the needle in the proverbial haystack year after year, especially if the needle might not even be there in the first place. But at a bare minimum, I think its fair to expect the Devils to take more players in rounds 1, 2, and 3 that have the right skillsets to make them reasonable bets to eventually make it to the NHL. I wouldâve liked to have heard more in regards to the Devils and their recent failures in drafting and development, particularly on the developmental side. Much has been written on this site in regards to poor draft selections, but its tougher to examine WHY draft picks fail. Is it because of the player? Did the organization fail them somewhere along the way? Or is it some combination of the two. Mehta didnât offer much in regards to the Devils situation, which makes sense as he just got here and isnât ultimately responsible for any of their draft picks in the past. He did say (repeatedly) that one of Bill Zitoâs greatest strengths was aggregating information from a variety of sources in-house. Not just scouts, but also the analytics department and sports science. Mehta wants to bring that approach to Newark. Of course, if this sounds like the collaborative effort that we thought the Devils were operating with under Fitzgeraldâs watchâŠ.well it certainly sounds like that from the outside looking in. This isnât a knock on Fitzgerald, but I do think some of the moves he had made the last few years that havenât worked have reverted back to the â200 Hockey Menâ line of thinking. The type of thinking in regards to team building where you gotta âget pucks in deepâ and be âtough to play againstâ and you subsequently start building your team in that manner because âitâs what works in the playoffsâ. I think you saw some of that with some of the recent reaches (Chase Stillman) that havenât worked out. I donât know if Greg Wyshynskiâs report the Fitzgerald overrode the analytics department on the Ondrej Palat signing is accurate. But I do know that most of the scouting department is likely to be overhauled anyways as theyâre going to be out of contract, and Iâm fairly confident that over time, the Devils will get better players more frequently using Mehtaâs approachâŠ.whatever it isâŠ.than they did the previous regime did. If it were up to me, Iâd overhaul everything on the pro and amateur scouting side. I think thereâs enough examples in recent years of what hasnât worked between poor selections, stalled development, and a stagnant AHL affiliate that has consistently been unable to provide any help. Weâll see what direction Mehta ultimately goes in though once he starts bringing âhis guysâ aboard.
Considering Mehta is a former poker player, he might want to do a better job with his tells because I think he tipped his hand here. When answering a question about what he views the identity of the Devils to be as a team moving forward, Mehta said âIâll talk with Sheldon about (it) in the upcoming offseason.â Mehta said earlier in the press conference that âAs for the short term, going forward, thereâs going to be a period of assessment of all players, coaches and staff. No decisions are made on anything pertaining to that (right now).â One would view those two quotes in isolation and note that they seem to be contradicting each other. And it wouldâve been nice had somebody in the press corps had asked the obvious follow up question whether or not that means Sheldon Keefe is safe for now. But reading between the lines, I donât know how one interprets that former statement other than operating under the assumption that Keefe will remain as the head coach of the Devils moving forward. Why would one talk with the head coach of the team about what they think the identity of the team going forward should be if you intend on hiring your own coach to replace him? If you didnât want the coach around, wouldnât you simply say that we thank him for his service, but are choosing to go in a different direction. If I had to bet, I think Keefe is staying. I donât think thatâs necessarily a bad thing either. Itâs important for the head coach and general manager to be lock step in their vision for the team. Mehta went as far as to call the relationship âparamountâ. And the easiest way to accomplish that would be letting the general manager pick his head coach rather than inheriting one from the previous regime. One can note that Keefe has historically been a coach that is open to listening to the analytics team to try to put the team in the best position he can. One can also note that Sheldon Keefe is a good head coach with success in this league, note the lack of quality alternatives out there at the moment, look at the adjustments the Devils made in their style of play post-Olympics where they looked significantly better than they did earlier in the season, and come to the conclusion that the smartest move for now is to simply not make a move. For now, anyways. Thatâs not to say that Mehta canât change his mind a year or two from now as he continues to reshape the roster. Or if a better option becomes available. Only Mehta (and maybe David Blitzer) knows what the Devils intend to do, but it would appear to me on the outside that Keefe is staying for the time being.
I donât want to gloss over the identity question, as I think thatâs an important one, so letâs circle back to that.
âFor me, personally, I donât really necessarily gravitate towards thinking that you have to play a certain style to win. Obviously, we played a somewhat idiosyncratic style with the Panthers, but I mean, the Lightning played a considerably different style than we did, and they won two Cups. And, so, I think we have to play to whatever it is our identity is and not do it the other way where we put the cart before the horse.â I think one of the biggest issues with the NHL in general is that too many front office executives take the wrong lessons away from the successful teams. It would be easy to point to what Florida did well in their Cup run and say âwe need to recreate thatâ. After all, theyâre big and physical and hit people. They get to the tough areas of the ice. They win along the boards. And most importantly, they won. All of that might be true, but Florida also had a lot of really good hockey players. Just like how Tampa and Colorado and Vegas and other Stanley Cup champions before them also had a lot of really good hockey players. And like Mehta said, thereâs more than one way to succeed in this league. You might not be able to win on skill alone, but if the Devils of the last couple years are an example, youâre not going to win on sandpaper and grit alone either. You need the right balance. More importantly, you need to lean into the strengths of your best players and what they do well instead of trying to neuter them. The Devils had gotten away from being a team that comes after you wave after wave on the rush, and one would hope as they try to acquire more talent, they lean more towards what made them successful a few years ago. When asked if he views the Devils as a contender more in the short-term or the long-term, Mehta said that he views them as both and his goal is to instill a process to help them win that is repeatable. Of course, Mehta didnât dive into any specifics, as he often referred to this only being âhis second day on the jobâ and that there was an assessment period that needs to play out. But he certainly didnât sound like someone who intends on doing a retool or rebuild of any sort. Now, that doesnât mean theyâre just going to run it back with 90% of the same roster they had this past season either. Iâm sure Mehta (and perhaps Keefe as well if heâs staying) has an idea already of which players they want to move on from and which ones they view as pieces moving forward. Not to mention that Mehta is inheriting a roster with a lot of players with some form of no-trade protection, bad contracts, or both. There might be instances where his hands are tied in the short-term because he canât move on from the mistakes from the previous regime as quickly as heâd like to. But I think we are looking at a roster that is due for a shakeup to some extent anyways. I donât know what the future of Dougie Hamilton, Simon Nemec, or Dawson Mercer are, and it wouldâve been nice had someone asked the next general manager what he thought of those players, but would I be surprised if Mehta took a sledgehammer to our blueline and bottom six to build a team that fits his vision better than the one he inherited? No, it would not. If one is looking for something more tangible than that when it comes to the Devils and their intentions, David Blitzer did confirm when asked that he intends for the Devils to continue spending to the salary cap ceiling as it continues to increase over the next few years. So any concerns about the Devils operating with some sort of internal cap can be put to rest for now.
Mehta was asked a lot about poker, which is understandable given his background. As a (bad) amateur poker player myself, I can certainly relate to a lot of the poker references he made. Consider this quote for a moment.
âI think most long-term poker players are what, in the business, we call âtight and aggressive,â which means in some ways youâre more patient than other poker players in the sense that you donât play garbage cards â have the discipline and the patience to wait for your moment. When you have that moment, youâre extremely aggressive â you have to have the guts to do what it takes when that moment is right to win the hand, and Iâd say thatâs exactly how I view this.â I think this is the correct way to approach this. And I say this as someone who was very critical of Tom Fitzgerald and his tendency to sit on his hands for months on end while a season would spiral out of control and do nothing. In poker, you might win occasionally playing hands like nine four offsuit. But more often than not, if you continually play those hands and play it like you have the nuts when you flop a pair of fours, youâre probably going to lose more often than you win. After all, its just a pair of fours at the end of the day. Mehta made this point a few times but he mentioned that Bill Zito essentially was an aggregator of information before he made a decision and that that is what he wants to do as GM. Again, Iâm not saying that Fitzgerald didnât consult his braintrust before making decisions. I certainly didnât love Blitzerâs answer about how there wasnât a moment last season where he woke up one morning and declared that there needed to be a change when there were plenty of those mornings this season. But I do think you need to be willing to pivot when what youâre seeing isnât working either. Trusting what your eyes are indeed telling you and not being a slave to what your process or model says. Conversely, when an opportunity presents itself to be âtight and aggressiveâ and make a move that will help you win, you want to see the GM be all in and aggressive in pursuing that. Iâm not saying Fitzgerald wasnât âall inâ when it came to, say, when Quinn Hughes became available. But one would have to believe coming away from that press conference that had Sunny Mehta been in charge of the Devils, they wouldâve been in a better position to get him between having the right players to trade away, having the flexibility with the salary cap to make a move like that on a whim, and the gumption to seal the deal. And had they done that, they might still be playing hockey games this season. All of that brings me to my next point.
I think some people have painted Mehta with the broad brush of heâs the âanalytics guyâ and heâs not going to do anything that his model or Excel spreadsheet is going up against. Itâs probably a little premature to say thatâŠ.the truth is we donât know how heâll react when he has to make a free agent signing or a waiver claim or a trade or fire a coach. We donât know how heâs going to act when he has to look someone in the face and tell them why theyâre being waived or traded. I assume because he came across eloquently in his press conference that he has some tact when it comes to the human element but will he be cutthroat when it comes to cleaning up some of the mess he has inherited? It remains to be seen. That said, I thought his full answer about analytics was notable.
âTo me, the reason that I ever even cared about analytics, statistics, probability, is âcause it helped me win.â Mehta would go on to talk about how he learned analytics on the job as he never really set out to be the âanalytics guyâ in the first place and how understanding the data helped him become a better poker player, a better trader, and ultimately, got his foot in the door with NHL franchises. If nothing else, Mehta came across as an extremely competitive person. You have to be if youâre going to be a professional poker player, a stock trader, and work in an NHL front office. Analytics can sometimes be overratedâŠ.Iâll go to my grave arguing against anyone who suggested Dougie Hamilton was playing well pre-benching when he had 10 points in 40 games or whatever it was because his advanced stats said so. When youâre being paid $9M a year, I donât want to hear about your expected goals. I expect you to score real goals. But I do think Mehta has had a model that has clearly worked for him in the past, which I think is why Iâm intrigued by the idea of him finding players that other teams deem expendable. Every team uses analytics. Itâs naive to think that Colorado, Florida, or Tampa Bay havenât en route to being perennial Cup contenders. Itâs part of why Carolina has separated themselves from the rest of the pack in the Metropolitan. I think its safe to assume the Devils will lean even harder into the analytics. And theyâll likely be better off as a result.
He called it Taylor Ham, which is the correct choice.