Former poker player Sunny Mehta is not showing his cards as the Devils' new GM

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — When Sunny Mehta brought the Stanley Cup to his hometown in northern New Jersey two years ago when he won it for the first of back-to-back times as part of the Florida Panthers front office, fans asked when he would bring it back for the local team he grew up cheering for.

On his second day as general manager of the Devils, Mehta expressed a belief that it could happen sooner than later, while also pledging to build a sustained championship contender.

How he intends to do that remains to be seen, and the former professional poker player-turned-hockey executive is not showing his hand on what he has in store for the roster, coach Sheldon Keefe and his staff or anything else.

"No decisions have been made on anything pertaining to that," Mehta said at his introductory news conference Tuesday. “We’re all on the same page that there’ll be an evaluation process going forward."

Mehta served as director of analytics for New Jersey from 2014-18. This is the second time owner David Blitzer decided to hire Mehta, whom he asked a dozen years ago to write down his ideal roster on a sheet of paper.

“I was just trying to get a sense for the way his brain worked,” Blitzer said. “And the way his brain worked is probably the way you would all hope his brain worked because it’s pretty good.”

Mehta's hockey brain made him a candidate for multiple vacancies around the NHL. The 48-year-old could have probably gotten more money from the Toronto Maple Leafs, who were also looking for an analytical GM.

He chose the Devils and, underneath a screen showing him hoisting the Cup, called it without exaggeration his dream job. He called being from New Jersey a part of his identity and, for good measure, even dropped a Taylor Ham reference to show which half of the state he came from.

“This is where I’ve always wanted to be,” Mehta said. “This is where I want to be.”

Coming from an organization that attracted players with a mix of winning, warm weather and no state income tax in Florida, Mehta also thinks the Devils should be a destination franchise, citing the ease of travel, proximity to Manhattan and nice suburbs among the reasons.

It will now be up to him to make that case and reshape the roster around a young talented core of Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt and captain Nico Hischier. At their coffee meeting over the weekend, Mehta said Hughes peppered him with 20 minutes worth of poker questions and does think his background at the tables and as an options trader helps him understand how to build a hockey team.

What Mehta bristles at is being labeled as the analytics guy.

“The reason that I ever even cared about analytics, statistics, probably is because it helped me win,” Mehta said. “It helped me win in poker, it helped me win on the trading floor and it’s helped me win in hockey. ... It’s not just numbers. You have to have a feel for your opponent. You have to understand the subjectivity of bluffing. You have to understand the psychology.”

Poker also taught him an important lesson about what it takes to win in pro sports.

“You can kind of do everything right and still lose,” Mehta said. “You have to almost somewhat ignore short-term results and just focus on your process and have the guts to stick with it and to know and to be objective that you’re making the right decisions and just keep doing it over and over again and now that success will follow."

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Sunny Mehta, the new general manager of the New Jersey Devils NHL hockey club, attends news conference in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Sunny Mehta, the new general manager of the New Jersey Devils NHL hockey club, speaks during an introductory news conference in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Sunny Mehta, the new general manager of the New Jersey Devils NHL hockey club, attends news conference in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Sunny Mehta, the new general manager of the New Jersey Devils NHL hockey club, right, poses for a picture with Devils owner David Blitzer during a news conference in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Sunny Mehta, the new general manager of the New Jersey Devils NHL hockey club, attends news conference in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted Tuesday on federal fraud charges alleging it improperly raised millions of dollars to pay informants to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.

The civil rights group faces charges including wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the case brought by the Justice Department in Alabama, where the organization is based.

The indictment came shortly after SPLC revealed the existence of a criminal investigation into its program to pay informants to infiltrate extremist groups and gather information on their activities. The group said the program was used to monitor threats of violence and the information was often shared with local and federal law enforcement.

SPLC CEO Bryan Fair said the organization “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work.”

Blanche said the SPLC paid at least $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to people affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, the United Klans of America, the National Socialist Party of America and other extremist groups.

“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” Blanche said.

He said the SPLC never disclosed to donors details about its informant program. “They’re required to under the laws associated with a nonprofit to have certain transparency and honesty in what they’re telling donors they’re going to spend money on and what their mission statement is and what they’re raising money doing,” he said.

Blanche said the money was passed from the center through two different bank accounts before being loaded onto prepaid cards to give to the members of the extremist groups, which also included the National Socialist Movement and the Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club.

The SPLC's Fair said the program was kept quiet to protect the safety of informants.

“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” Fair said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”

The SPLC, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama, was founded in 1971 and used civil litigation to fight white supremacist groups. The nonprofit has become a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.

The investigation could add to concerns that Trump's Republican administration is using the Justice Department to go after conservative opponents and his critics. It follows a number of other investigations into Trump foes that have raised questions about whether the law enforcement agency has been turned into a political weapon.

The SPLC has faced intense criticism from conservatives, who have accused it of unfairly maligning right-wing organizations as extremist groups because of their viewpoints. The center regularly condemns Trump’s rhetoric and policies around voting rights, immigration and other issues.

The center came under fresh scrutiny after the assassination last year of conservative activist Charlie Kirk brought renewed attention to its characterization of the group that Kirk founded and led. The center included a section on that group, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as “A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said last year that the agency was severing its relationship with the center, which had long provided law enforcement with research on hate crime and domestic extremism. Patel said the center had been turned into a “partisan smear machine,” and he accused it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States.

House Republicans hosted a hearing centered on the SPLC in December, saying it coordinated efforts with President Joe Biden's Democratic administration "to target Christian and conservative Americans and deprive them of their constitutional rights to free speech and free association.”

FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks as FBI Director Kash Patel listens during a news conference at the Justice Department, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks as FBI Director Kash Patel listens during a news conference at the Justice Department, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

FILE - Tourists walk past a banner with President Donald Trump hanging on the Department of Justice, Feb. 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)