Mehta is believed to be the first person of South Asian descent to become an NHL GM, which Bawa hails as a sign of progress in hockey and a source of pride among members of the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s an historic moment, just incredible,\u201d said Bawa, a forward who played 61 NHL games with the Capitals, Vancouver Canucks, San Jose Sharks and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim from 1989-94. \u201cThe GM is the face of the franchise and he\u2019s going to be the face of the franchise for the Devils. He\u2019s going to be in the spotlight, and the whole world will know, which is incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mehta emphasized his Jersey roots on Tuesday, but took a moment, when asked, to touch on what his ascension means to a South Asian community where interest in hockey is growing, especially in Western Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still remember, like, the first time I had my day with the Cup (in 2024),\u201d he said. \u201cThe Cup (keepers) were telling my dad that they were pretty certain that I was the first person of South Asian descent, to be on the Cup and, like, it just it meant so much to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor my parents, that kind of thing is a big deal. They were immigrants. They came to this country with $50 in their pocket separately. They met here, and they worked their way up to sort of put me in this position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mehta was with the Panthers for six seasons, including the past three as assistant GM and director of analytics. Florida made the Cup Final each of the past three seasons, winning back-to-back championships in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mehta is believed to be the first person of South Asian descent to become an NHL GM, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5109],"tags":[201,5,576,151,5185,5184,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-560619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-jersey-devils","8":"tag-devils","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-new-jersey","11":"tag-new-jersey-devils","12":"tag-newjersey","13":"tag-newjerseydevils","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116475266621930475","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560619","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=560619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}