Mehta Has Command On Devils
Devils fans understood that new General Manager Sunny Mehta was likely to operate differently from his predecessors. His multidimensional background where he trained in the disparate arts of music, poker, and financial derivatives before turning his attention to hockey allows him to make decisions from angles not necessarily in confluence with others in NHL suites.
Such was the case with Mehta’s first NHL Draft pick while in charge of the stagnant organization he inherited in New Jersey. He wasn’t going to be blinded by size like Tom Fitzgerald had been of late, nor was he going to abide by the consensus provided by the many mocksters (like me) who aren’t accountable for their misses.
The Devils selected Swedish center Alexander Command with the No. 12 overall pick on Friday night, setting off a debate among fans who considered him a reach. Command himself seemed a bit surprised by New Jersey’s show of faith in him during his ESPN interview.
Mehta entered the conversation as a potential lead executive after lobbying for Jesper Bratt, a complete unknown while toiling in the second Swedish league, while acting as the Devils’ Director of Hockey Analytics in advance of the 2016 Draft. Bratt was tabbed in Round 6 and has since tallied more points than all but four other players in that class.
Command, however, is in no way comparable to Bratt, whose elite edge work then was so evident that it made the Devils’ scouting staff ignore his lack of size and relatively miniscule point totals. From all scouting reports, Command seems like the proverbial jack of all trades, master of none. The high floor, low ceiling pick. He’s coming off a sound 2025-26 campaign (17 goals and 27 assists in 30 games, albeit in Swedish juniors) and produced at a point-per-game clip in 28 games for Sweden’s U18 teams in international competitions. He then went pointless in six games after jumping to the country’s top level.
Command did earn universal high grades from scouts for his 200-foot game. He reportedly doesn’t shy away from the small-ice, physical battles that are ubiquitous throughout an NHL grind. One report had him with a 58% win rate in the faceoff dots last season.
The question, though, is whether he can eventually provide enough offensive firepower to warrant middle six minutes. Everything about him skill-wise—skating, shooting, playmaking—is rated as just fine, but not exceptional…
yet. At 18, he can certainly grow his game as well as his body, measured at 6-foot 1 and 187 pounds at the NHL Combine earlier this month. It will obviously take years before Command, like all but perhaps a few of his Draft classmates, is ready for NHL action, so let’s not rush to judgement.
In the meantime, Mehta has more pressing matters to address this offseason to right a wayward ship that has one playoff series victory in 14 years. He has already traded away a Fitzgerald mistake, former 2022 No. 2 overall pick Simon Nemec, to Calgary, obtaining two top-ten protected first-round picks, a second rounder, and minor league defenseman Etienne Morin for the pending restricted free agent defenseman and useless wing Maxim Tsyplakov. Much more work is needed to unravel a salary cap stranglehold caused by Fitzgerald’s overuse of no-trade/no-move clauses in contracts and to solve the franchise’s perennial goaltending woes.
Command is simply just the first step to restock a prospect pool that Fitzgerald diminished in his failed efforts to get New Jersey over the hump. The Devils will likely include him in their pre-training camp activities, starting with next week’s Development Camp, which will give fans a quick look at what Mehta settled on for his first major acquisition.