Every autumn, there are a number of good reasons to drive across Pennsylvania. There’s the fall foliage, the alpine slide, plenty of high-school and college football games, but this year, a lot of hockey people will have a once-in-a-lifetime reason to make the trek.
This weekend, I made the pilgrimage from Pittsburgh to State College to see Gavin McKenna, the projected number one overall pick in the upcoming NHL entry draft. He’s playing, as a 17-year-old, in the NCAA for the Penn State Men’s hockey team.
He’s the most hyped prospect to come out of the junior ranks since Connor McDavid or Sidney Crosby. The difference is, he’s coming out of the junior ranks early. He’s taking advantage of the NCAA’s new rules allowing younger players to play and partake in the Name-Image-Likeness (NIL) deals that have become the new norm in college sports.
McKenna is foregoing what would be his final year of Junior Hockey before making the jump to the NHL, and forging a new path. One that nobody in the hockey world has taken before.
McKenna hails from the small town of White Horse, all the way up in the Yukon Territory of Canada. For those like me who start to struggle with the Canadian geography north of Toronto, White Horse is on the western side of Canada, around the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. Which is to say, he’s from the deep north, deep, deep north.
This kid comes from a place where pond hockey isn’t just a hobby, it’s probably the only game in town 6 months out of the year. He grew up playing on the outdoor rink his father made for him, and eventually wound up in Medicine Hat, Alberta, playing for the Tigers in the WHL.
McKenna absolutely dominated the WHL. He was outpacing Connor McDavid’s junior point totals; he was the rookie of the year, followed by the player of the year. The path for every top prospect of his caliber before him was to play his last year, have a record-setting season, and go first overall in the draft.
Now that the NIL has opened the door to the NCAA for players of his stature, he has a chance to refine his skills against bigger bodies, more in line with the types of players he’ll be playing against in the NHL.
Sure, he could have stayed in juniors, piled up a ridiculous number of points, and waltzed into the draft relatively untested. Instead, he chose the path with more unknowns, more challenges.
The NCAA provides him with the opportunity to play against more mature players, and he has the opportunity to bulk up and focus a lot on his strength and conditioning.
You see, in juniors, they play an NHL-type schedule, games all through the week, with practices scattered throughout. In college, they play on the weekends and have the rest of the week to train their bodies.
At Penn State, he also has the university’s resources to lean on when it comes to training and nutrition.
After Penn State’s overtime victory over LIU on Friday, I asked coach Guy Gadowsky how McKenna has been handling the physical challenge of playing against young adults in the NCAA.
“Really well…he knows why he’s here. He’s working really hard and very consistently with our strength and conditioning, with nutrition, he’s already put on weight”, Gadowsky said.
It’s not just the conditioning that’s different here; after the game, his teammate, friend, and last year's 14th overall selection by the Columbus Blue Jackets, Jackson Smith, I think, summed up the other difference between juniors and college pretty succinctly.
“I feel like there's a lot less time and space here”, Smith said.
McKenna knows he has the skills to play at the NHL level; he’s in the NCAA, so he can get bigger, faster, and more used to a fast-paced, tight-checking style of game. He’s using the NCAA to allow himself room to grow as a player and as a person.
He’s also getting the college experience at a young age. He’s challenging himself both academically and athletically. All of which is invaluable when it comes to his development.
As for how he looked in the game, he did not disappoint. Although his name was absent from the score sheet for most of the night, his superior skill was evident.
He eventually had the secondary assist on the overtime game winner, where he had a nice zone entry, stick handled the puck in a phone booth, then hit Smith with the puck in stride. It was a nice way to cap off the night for the home crowd.
What stood out to me the most was his vision and his anticipation. His ability to read the play was head and shoulders above everyone else on the ice. His hockey sense and IQ appear to be off the charts.
McKenna is also an elite distributor of the puck. So much so that he frequently surprises teammates with a puck hitting their stick when they least expect it.
He’s got a great shot, but he didn’t display it much in this game. If anything, I thought he deferred to passing a little too often, something great young playmakers are frequently guilty of.
In fact, it reminded me a little bit of Sidney Crosby in his rookie year with the Penguins. There were times when Crosby would rather make the difficult pass than take the shot himself. McKenna is in a new environment; he’ll get his fair share of shots.
The other thing I noticed about McKenna was how deceptively fast his skating is. He doesn’t look like he’s skating fast, yet when he’s carrying the puck in full flight, nobody can catch him.
Like the title of this entry says, he has room to grow, which is exactly what he needs. He has all the raw talent, he has the hockey IQ and the vision, now he needs to get his build filled out like he plans to, and get used to the quickness of a more mature game.
There are certain things you can pull off in juniors that you cannot do against grown men. Frequent extended shifts, gliding through the neutral zone on a back check, that extra dangle with the puck, usually that comes back to bite you when you’re not playing against kids.
Everyone before him had to adjust to this at the NHL level in their rookie year. For Gavin McKenna he has the room to make these adjustments now so that he can hit the ground running in the NHL next year.
He’s not going to average 3 points a game at Penn State like he would have had he stayed in Medicine Hat, and that’s fine. As a kid who should be a senior in high school, he’s already averaging a point per game against guys in their early to mid twenties, so I think he’ll be ok.
I think in the coming years we’ll see more and more junior hockey standouts follow in his footsteps. Which means college hockey is about to change dramatically, and for the better, thanks to McKenna.
With Gavin McKenna, in addition to his generational talent, you’re getting a player who doesn’t run from challenges, but towards them. A player who is poised to be a leader and carry heavy burdens.
There are a lot of NHL Franchises in desperate need of a player ready to bear the heavy burden of lifting them to a Stanley Cup, which is a challenge I am certain Gavin McKenna is eager to accept.
