Maple Leafs miss out on top candidate for GM job

The Toronto Maple Leafs are on the hunt for a new general manager who is hopefully going to steer this organization into being respectable once again. Unfortunately, one of the top candidates to take that role has taken a job elsewhere.

After winning back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Florida Panthers, assistant general manager Sunny Mehta was a hot commodity around the NHL for the various open positions to take over a team and more or less be in full control. One of those teams that were reportedly very interested in hiring Mehta was the Maple Leafs. Unfortunately, that cannot happen anymore.

Maple Leafs lose top candidate for GM job, gets hired by Devils

Announced by the team on Thursday night, the New Jersey Devils have hired Mehta to be their new general manager after firing Tom Fitzgerald.

While it is disappointing that the Maple Leafs didn't get one of the brightest minds in the sport to lead their team, it does have to be mentioned that Mehta's first job in hockey was with the Devils as an analyst and he held that position for four years from 2014 to 2018 as one of the first analytics hire by an NHL organization. He was then hired by the Panthers in 2021 and quickly rose up the ranks to be the assistant general manager in 2023.

It felt like destiny that Mehta would return to his home state of New Jersey to then lead a disheveled Devils team back to a glory they once knew.

And honestly, even disregarding the homecoming aspect of this hire, if you wanted to win a Cup as soon as possible, or even in the next five years, taking on the Devils roster and who they have in that lineup in terms of foundational building blocks, certainly feels like an easier task than trying to rescue the Maple Leafs from the edge of what is a very steep cliff.

Now, Toronto shifts its focus to different candidates and there are still more "data-focused" hockey minds out there.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow