{"id":550489,"date":"2026-04-11T18:10:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T18:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/550489\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T18:10:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T18:10:58","slug":"brilliant-minds-should-shine-panthers-wont-stand-in-mehtas-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/550489\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Brilliant minds should shine’: Panthers won’t stand in Mehta’s way"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 The Florida Panthers<\/a> will not get in the way of Sunny Mehta\u2019s rising star.<\/p>\n

Not only has the 47-year-old assistant general manager been granted permission to interview with the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> and New Jersey Devils for their vacant GM jobs, but Mehta\u2019s praises were sung loudly Saturday as\u00a0the Panthers rolled into Toronto.<\/a><\/p>\n

Remember, Panthers GM Bill Zito was poached by Florida from the Columbus Blue Jackets\u2019 front office. So it makes sense that Zito isn\u2019t going to block members of his own team from earning promotions and raises elsewhere.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Devils and Maple Leafs\u2019 interest in Mehta, the Nashville Predators have interviewed fellow Panthers AGM Brett Peterson for their vacant GM role, as Barry Trotz is passing the baton.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019ve reached three straight Stanley Cup finals and won twice, your competitors want to snatch a piece of that success.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy experience in Florida with all of Bill\u2019s group has been fantastic,\u201d Florida coach Paul Maurice said Saturday at Scotiabank Arena. \u201cSonny\u2019s fantastic with analytics and his ability to articulate it to coaches \u2014 that easy conversation. We can ask questions; we get answers and explanations back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBrett Peterson and Gregory Campbell, part of that group, brought in guys from outside that weren\u2019t flourishing where they were, and they become stars or part of our core.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the stars \u2014 like Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Seth Jones, and Matthew Tkachuk \u2014 that Florida\u2019s assistants help identify, though.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Depth players, Maurice says, have been critical to the club\u2019s championships.<\/p>\n

Maurice brings up an undervalued and injury-plagued Oliver Ekman-Larsson, bought out by Vancouver. Buy-low free agent A.J. Greer, now a character bottom-six checker with a championship ring. Nate Schmidt getting healthy-scratched in Winnipeg. Ryan Lomberg. Kevin Stenlund.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been able to find those guys,\u201d Maurice said, tipping his cap to Zito\u2019s group. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s just finding the right mix of guys. But they\u2019ve hit that number right. And Sunny, with those others, is a big part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mehta\u2019s direct relationship with the Panthers players has been limited.<\/p>\n

Panther-turned-Leaf Steven Lorentz shared a Cup with Mehta in 2024. Lorentz says he\u2019d see\u00a0the strategy wizard<\/a>\u00a0around the locker room but never got to know him on a personal level.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you\u2019re part of a winning organization,\u201d Lorentz said, \u201cobviously they\u2019re doing something right. And it takes every single guy in the organization. So, whatever he\u2019s doing, he\u2019s doing a great job at it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJust shaking hands and seeing him around the room, he was always a great, welcoming guy. And he\u2019s a very smart mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not just when it comes to identifying hockey fits but also trading stocks and walking away from the card table with your money.<\/p>\n

Sitting in the visitors\u2019 room in Toronto, Greer smiled as he explained that Mehta, a former poker pro, gifted the forward one of the two books he\u2019d written on Texas hold \u2019em.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked a lot about that,\u201d said Greer, a regular in the Panthers\u2019 in-flight poker games. \u201cGreat guy. Very nice and welcoming. And I know that what we\u2019ve built in Florida here has come a long way. He’s been a big part of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I wish him all the best if he does go somewhere else. And I do think that brilliant minds like him should have a spot to shine somewhere for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 The Florida Panthers will not get in the way of Sunny Mehta\u2019s rising star. Not only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5106],"tags":[5,20,5172,4,66,31,5171],"class_list":{"0":"post-550489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-maple-leafs","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-maple-leafs","10":"tag-mapleleafs","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","14":"tag-torontomapleleafs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116387424989600942","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}