Last week, Sunny Mehta sat at the head of a large conference room table within Prudential Center overlooking RWJBarnabas Health Hockey House, his team’s practice facility. Dressed in a crisp white button-down and a light-colored suit jacket, Mehta reflected on the unexpected evolution of his career aspirations—from dreaming of becoming a rock star to ultimately reaching the position he holds today: general manager of the New Jersey Devils.

From Eddie Vedder being his role model to the legacy he hopes to leave with the Devils, Mehta opened up about his journey for an upcoming issue of The Hockey News magazine. While we wait for that issue to hit newsstands, I am thrilled to share the second half of my interview with Mehta—one that focuses on the team he now oversees.

From his team’s leadership to Jack Hughes’ health and the depth he added to the roster, let’s dive in.

The Hockey News: I want to talk about Nico Hischier. He is the captain of a team that, for years, has been looking for consistency and trying to figure out how to play a sustainable game. We know that Nico is a lead-by-example captain, and when I look around, and my perspective could be wrong, his alternates all seem to lead the same way, whether it is Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, or even going back to Ondrej Palat. They all speak up when they need to, but lead by example.

I started looking around the league at other captains who have led similarly. I look at Patrice Bergeron; he had Brad Marchand, who brought something different to the leadership group. You would know better than me, but you have Aleksander Barkov, who has Matthew Tkachuk to balance out his leadership style.

I am wondering, for where this team is right now, do you feel you are missing that player to complement Hischier and be more of a vocal guy to balance Hischier out instead of having a bunch of leaders that lead by example, but are still looking to take the next step?

Sunny Mehta: I know exactly what you are getting at. It is a great question. I would argue that I see some similarities with Jack Hughes and Matthew Tkachuk. The only place where I might slightly differ from your viewpoint there is on Jack.

It is funny because I have talked about this because I do see similarities between Nico and Sasha Barkov. In a lot of ways, actually, Barkov is more quiet than Nico. I think Nico, on the scale of things, would probably be considered a quiet leader, but he is not even as quiet as Barkov. Barkov is really quiet in terms of just the vocal rah rah rah kind of thing, and even his personality. He is just a quiet dude. Nico is way more outgoing than Barkov. Again, it is all relative, but I see a lot of similarities there. Even their style on the ice, they lean defensive, right? They are always the responsible ones. You can rely on them to take a defensive zone draw. They are going to be out there against the other team's best players. They are always going to make sure that when they are in the offensive zone, they are going to be the first guy backchecking. They are going to be the guy high who is going to make sure that there is not an odd-man rush the other way. They are also both very unselfish in the way that they play. There are just a lot of similarities there.

I see similarities between Jack and Tkachuk. I got to know Matthew really well when I was with the Panthers, and he is a guy who likes the spotlight. He is vocal, outgoing, and a superstar. That is just his personality, but there is also an aspect to him that he is a really good teammate in terms of how he supports Barkov. He knows Barkov is the captain. Matthew is the alternate captain, so he is always protecting his teammates. He is always saying, ‘That's my captain. Don't mess with my captain.’ There is an aspect of that to him.

To me, especially since the Olympics, Jack is a superstar in America. He has been thrust into the spotlight, and I have even talked about this with Jack, where I said, “Not only do I not think that it is a bad thing, I think that is a good thing. I think there is this complementary thing that can happen with you and Nico, where Nico is the captain and he leads by example, and he is a more quiet leader, but he needs you. He needs that help.”

Everybody respected Barkov, and he led by example, but there were times when he needed Matthew to be vocal and the kind of vocal leader. I think that I see a lot of similarities there between Nico and Jack. Again, this is all painting with a big brush. There are also differences. Nico is not the same as Barkov, and Jack is not the same as Matthew but I see some similarities there.

THN: Speaking of Jack Hughes. There has been a narrative around this team for a while that the team's success lives and dies by the health of Jack Hughes. I am curious what you think when you hear that. As a follow-up, what needs to be done so that this team can become structurally sound when he is not available?

Mehta: On the first part of that question, to some extent, I am hard-pressed to see how that is not true for any great player. Any elite player in the league, by definition of them being elite, is significantly better than their peers. Therefore, if you take them out of the lineup, the lineup is significantly worse. I think that is true of every team in every sport, right? If you take Josh Allen off the Buffalo Bills, they are a significantly worse team. If you take Connor McDavid off of the Edmonton Oilers, they are a significantly worse team. I mean, this is in some ways a shot against my own self, but you look at what happened to the Panthers last year when Barkov wasn't there all season. They were significantly worse. Now there were other factors too in terms of their health, fatigue, and all that, but I am saying to some extent, it is kind of de facto true that if you take a great player off of the team that they are on, the team is pretty significantly worse. That is why they are great players.

Having said that, to the second part of your question, no doubt, my job as general manager is to do as much to protect against that as possible. It is almost like having an insurance policy, right? You want your best players on the ice because that is the way the team is going to have the highest probability of success. But then you try to plan, and you need to have depth.

I think for sure a big goal of mine was to improve this team's depth—big time.

THN: You have segued into my next question. I spoke with a couple of your players, and they talked about the depth that you added. One specifically mentioned Evan Rodrigues because they said one game he could play on the fourth line, defensively sound, and on the penalty kill. Next game, he is on the second line, being utilized on the power play, and he is scoring.

What I noticed is you are talking about depth, but not bringing in players that would be your stereotypical fourth-line players. You are bringing in guys who can move up and down the lineup. Was that something that you were targeting? Players who could be impactful on the fourth line, but if you have to move them up to the second line, there is no issue because they are capable of doing it?

Mehta: Yep, 100 percent. In fact, I would say, to even take that to an extreme, I don't necessarily think in terms of our fourth line needs to be a certain stylistic, stereotypical fourth line. We want the best players.

So, if we could get our fourth line like a second line, wouldn't that just be really good? You know what I mean? You look at Team USA. Their fourth line was guys who play on the first line on their NHL teams, and their team was unbelievable. It is not like they said we have to go get fourth-line guys to play on our fourth line. They just said, "We want the best players." That is what Team Canada did.

THN: May I ask a follow-up question?

Mehta: Yeah, sure.

THN: I would say you need players to buy in because if a guy is playing second line one night and the fourth line the next, there has to be a personality aspect as well. That buy-in: not asking why their minutes are being reduced, but saying, "This is what the team needs from me tonight, and this is what I have to do to bring my best."

Mehta: That is super fair. Yeah, that is really fair.

I do very much agree with you that if you are lower down in the lineup, you are going to see your ice time reduced, for sure. Guys have to be willing to buy in and sacrifice. Now I guess the counter to that is if you legitimately had a Connor McDavid on all four lines, the coach would probably more evenly distribute the lines. You are probably going to play them almost equally, but I don't think that is realistic in a salary cap world. Your first-line players are going to play more than your fourth-line players, but yeah, it is an interesting thought exercise.

THN: I want to finish by talking about Nico Daws. I have talked to him at length, and I have spoken to [Utica Comets goaltending coach] Brian Eklund as well. I know that they have been preparing him for this moment that is now in front of him.

Have you had conversations with Daws? I have talked to him a lot about the mental side of the game and confidence, and he seems to be in a really good place. Like, this is the perfect year for him to try and take that next step.

Mehta: I have talked to him. We messaged back and forth right when I got the job, then after we signed him to the contract extension, I called him, and we talked on the phone, and that was within hours of the Jacob Markstrom trade.

That was a convenient coincidence because then we could talk about everything, right? It was, “Hey, so excited that we signed you to the extension; you also saw the move we just made, and you know what that means for you. That is a path. That is an opportunity. It is up to you.”

I mean, at the end of the day, it is up to him, right? If we are going to give the opportunity, he has got to take it and run with it. That is pretty much how I see that. I think there are a lot of people in the organization who think he needed to have this opportunity to take that next step. He hasn't had that in the past, and now he got it. At this point, it is kind of up to him.

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