And Other Observations From the Season’s First 5 Weeks
by Adam Wodon/Managing Editor (@chn-adam-wodon)
In over 30 years of doing this, I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve written a whole column critiquing one particular player. And even then, it’s usually not directly related to the player, but rather some rant about Hobey voters.
So discussing Gavin McKenna’s brief stint in college hockey so far is not in my comfort zone. But really, this is more about the hype machine than anything McKenna has done or not done so far.
That hype was annoying from the get go — after all, we’ve had plenty high-end players in college hockey over the years, including a No. 1 overall pick just a year and a half ago. Even if McKenna were lights out from Day One, it was a bit much.
That said, if he really will be the No. 1 pick in the NHL Draft, as he’s been projected, he’s going to get plenty of scrutiny. And the way he came to college hockey was certainly new. He was one of the new crop of players who played last year in Major Junior, but were now eligible for the NCAA. And he was among the first to take advantage of big-time NIL/revenue share money. Both of those things have been major shifts in the college hockey landscape.
I am certainly not holding this craziness against him and hoping for him to fail. The hype is not his fault, and he has nothing to do with it. But it does naturally draw eyeballs wondering how he’s living up to it. And so far, the results are mixed, at least more mixed than you’d expect for someone being already anointed the next superstar No. 1 overall pick.
Having watched all but one of his games so far this season, it’s fair to say that the holes in his game are getting exposed. And scouts are noticing. His talent is also obvious, too, but we already knew that.
This past weekend got a lot of attention from NHL media because it was against Michigan State, another high-end team, with Porter Martone, a recent top 10 NHL pick who was “sent” to the NCAA by the Philadelphia Flyers (another new concept). But these pluses and minuses have been evident just about from the get go.
McKenna has a respectable 4 goals, 10 assists in 12 games. That’s a pace of around 45-50 points. Pretty good for a freshman. He’s also playing 21:58 per night, so his coaches believe in him.
But let’s be honest — he’s looked lost at times 5-on-5. He has 2 goals, 2 assists at 5-on-5, and one of those goals came this past weekend (Penn State’s only goal in the two games) when he flung a pass from the side boards that went off a leg and in. When he has the puck, he’s dazzling. When he doesn’t, he floats, offensively and defensively.
By contrast, Martone leads his team in points with 11, 10 of which have come 5-on-5. He’s also a plus-9.
I don’t pay much attention to players before they get to college. So, hype or no hype, I wait until they’re there and judge for myself. Some players I’ve been wowed by and wondered why they didn’t get more hype. Others I could tell were not going to live up to their lofty status. I’m not an Xs and Os genius by any stretch, but avoiding the hype, or lack thereof, allows you to see things with some more objectivity.
Compared to other high-end players in recent years — Macklin Celebrini, Adam Fantilli, Logan Cooley, Will Smith, Luke Hughes, Matty Beniers, Jack Eichel, Kyle Connor — McKenna has not been that. He just hasn’t. He has plenty of runway to get there, but that’s not being mean, it’s just being honest.
I said similar things about James Hagens last year, and he dropped from the projected No. 1 overall down to 7th in last year’s NHL Draft. I don’t know enough about this year’s Draft crop to tell you what will happen here, but I’m not the only one questioning his anointed status right now.
Ideally, this is a good thing for McKenna. He is by all measures a great kid who wants to learn. He came to college hockey to test himself at a higher level of competition. Hopefully, these things will sink in and he’ll learn to play an all-around game that matches his talent level. All of this would be perfectly normal if not for the over-the-top hoopla that surrounded him.
My ire is at the absurdity of it all. Making an announcement on ESPN about where he’s going to school. Predictions making Penn State the prohibitive preseason favorite to win the championship. Predictions that he would score 100 points. I mean, c’mon, the last player to do that was Paul Kariya.Â
Those things were absurd even if McKenna was awesome from the get go. Celebrini had a brilliant freshman season and scored 71. And McKenna is a wing, so he’s not meant to drive play like those other guys.
McKenna’s great moments and his struggles are perfectly normal for a freshman, even one of his caliber. But it’s nowhere near what others did right off the bat. He has a ways to go, and he very well may get there. But it does no good to make believe these holes aren’t real, just to justify the hype.
Elsewhere …
So I am now guilty myself of spending way too much time focused on one player. Going to try to move on and not do that again this season.
Here instead are a smattering of thoughts from around the country as we roll into mid-November.
* With the focus on McKenna, he’s been the fifth-best point producer on the team — fourth now after the unfortunate injury to Aiden Fink. But how about JJ Wiebusch, Charlie Cerrato and Matt DiMarsico? Those guys got a lot of attention during Penn State’s late-season run to the Frozen Four a year ago, and rightfully so. Then no one was talking about them. But everyone is talking about them again as they lead the way up front. Penn State was never going to just automatically be a Frozen Four team again, but there’s no reason to believe it can’t be, either.
* That said, with Fink out, there’s been a struggle to score, which has been unexpected. Not time to overreact, however, to losing a pair of road games at Michigan State (one in OT). The week before, the Lions gutted out two wins at Ohio State. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but the most pleasant surprise has been Mac Gadowsky on the Penn State back line. I saw him play last year for Army and thought his selection to be a Hobey finalist was legit, but many figured he was going to Penn State just to play for his dad, and to have that experience. But he’s not just along for the ride; he has the second-most playing time on the PSU defense, behind another NHL first-rounder, Jackson Smith.
* You may disagree if you hate Wisconsin, but it’s good to see that team back in the mix. Mike Hastings is too good a coach to let something like last year’s disastrous 13 wins happen again. I think some people were questioning whether he’d reached a ceiling after his “step up” from Minnesota State to Wisconsin. But I think the better perspective is to say that his first year there — 26 wins and an NCAA berth — was more the mirage, and last year was just part of the reset of molding the team in his image. It doesn’t hurt that freshman Daniel Hauser has stepped in at goal, played every minute, and put up a .930 save percentage. That’s a huge step up in that department. At 5-foot-11, there’s a reason he hasn’t gotten much NHL attention, but who cares if you’re the Badgers. And Hastings’ holdovers from Minnesota State — Christian Fitzgerald and Simon Tassy — slumped last year, but are now playing like their old selves again.
* It’s also fun seeing Minnesota Duluth back in the mix again. You may have gotten sick of them during their amazing four-year run, but it was a bit disconcerting to see the fall off, with coach Scott Sandelin starting to wonder whether his program would get left behind after all these changes that favor big school. This year is showing that he’s still got it. And the line of Max Plante, Zam Plante and Jason Shaugabay is rivaling that of Ryan Leonard-Will Smith-Gabe Perreault for recent-vintage fun factor.
* Getting to see Denver a lot in recent years, it’s no secret that I loved the heck out of watching Zeev Buium play. So did a lot of people though. The guys I really love, however, are the ones that others often overlook. In this case, that was defenseman Eric Pohlkamp, whose underlying numbers last year were pretty impressive. This year, as the alpha dog on that defense, he’s tearing it up. He leads Denver in goals (7), points (12) and shots (43) … as a defenseman. His plus-12 and 22 minutes of ice time per game are only slightly behind fellow defenseman Boston Buckberger.
* It’s also no secret I’m a bit biased towards Cornell and coach Casey Jones. I’ve known him, and the program, a long time, so as he takes over at his alma mater for Mike Schafer, I can’t help but be rooting. I think Cornell is going to have a season much better than people think, even their own fans. The recruiting class was very good — Jones has always excelled in that department. Bringing in goalie Alexis Cournoyer was a coup. Gio DiGiulian, whose dad is former Vermont assistant and St. Michael’s head coach Damien DiGiulian, is off to a tremendous start. The Big Red are 2-2. One loss was a season opener, on the road, against a very good Massachusetts team that had played 8 games, and Cornell dominated 5-on-5. The other was against a very good Dartmouth team, 2-1, again on the road. Two good wins, too — UMass and Harvard. But, as I say often, I’m not biased towards certain people because I’m best buddies with them. We don’t exchange Christmas cards and go on vacations together. That’s backwards. My “bias,” if you will, towards defending or pulling for certain people is because I think they’re good at what they do, and so I become admirers.
* There was so much turnover this year — numerous teams had more than a dozen newcomers — that just about everyone is a work in progress, even moreso than usual. It’s hard to tell what a lot of teams are. That seems especially true, however, in Hockey East, where there’s like six or seven — maybe more — pretty good teams, but all with flaws, all with good games and clunkers so far, and no one is rising to the top at this point. Boston University seems to fit this bill the most, however. With so much talent, it was expected to be a national contender, and still may be. But the defense has been a trainwreck more often than not, and goalie Mikhail Yegorov has contributed to that as much as his defensemen have. But BU under Jay Pandolfo always seems to figure it out as the season goes on. Maine may be the team I’m most confident in, however.
* Michigan is another team looking to return to the NCAAs after a rare year away. Michael Hage and Will Horcoff have emerged as forces. And Jack Ivankovic is the stabilizer in net the Wolverines haven’t had in a long time. The loss of third-round pick Henry Mews from the backline, seemingly for the season, will hurt.
* There’s been an absurd amount of coaching turnover the last three years — over 50 percent of college hockey — and there was 11 this past year. Doing best of all so far, among those, may be Matt Thomas at RIT. The Tigers are off to a 7-2 start, with Czech goalie Jakub Krbecek among the leaders in goals saved above expected. Brendan Riley at Long Island and Keith Fisher at Lindenwood are also doing well despite a ton of turnover and an independent schedule.
* Miami’s 7-1 start may be somewhat of a mirage given the strength of schedule, but when you’re trying to rebuild from rock bottom, the confidence that just putting wins under your belt brings, cannot be measured.
* Don’t overlook Dartmouth. At 4-0, the Big Green may be headed towards their first 20-win season on 21 years. We said this last year, too, however, about Dartmouth’s good start, and it tapered off (still with 18 wins). I think this one is here to stay, though. The goaltending tandem of Emmett Croteau and Roan Clarke has stepped up its game.
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