{"id":400997,"date":"2026-01-11T05:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/400997\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:20:11","slug":"gavin-mckennas-insane-pass-proves-why-hell-be-nhl-draft-no-1-pick-in-2026-out-of-penn-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/400997\/","title":{"rendered":"Gavin McKenna’s insane pass proves why he’ll be NHL Draft No. 1 pick in 2026 out of Penn State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gavin McKenna’s insane pass proves why he’ll be NHL Draft No. 1 pick in 2026 out of Penn State<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gavin McKenna has been viewed as the likely No. 1 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft for a while.<\/p>\n

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He went to Penn State this season to play NCAA Division I hockey rather than stay in the juniors ranks, which is a bit of a different choice. But the excitement isn’t waver.<\/p>\n

McKenna just got back recently from the World Juniors tournament in which he suited up for Canada and had a hat trick.<\/p>\n

Back with the Nittany Lions, McKenna is doing absurd things.<\/p>\n

Watch this goal. Then watch the replay. Then recognize that McKenna is No. 72:<\/p>\n

That’s McKenna with the wildly instinctive backward pass up the ice to lead his teammate perfectly.<\/p>\n

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Hockey players aren’t just out here making passes like that.<\/p>\n

But McKenna isn’t your average hockey player. People have been throwing around that “generational” label for him.<\/p>\n

That’s obviously high praise. But then you watch a pass like that, and you believe it. Absolutely incredible stuff from McKenna.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Blues’ goalie hid in the hallway to avoid going into the game<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gavin McKenna’s insane pass proves why he’ll be NHL Draft No. 1 pick in 2026 out of Penn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[462],"tags":[766,5,50759,4,465,466,20590,2147],"class_list":{"0":"post-400997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-draft","8":"tag-gavin-mckenna","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-matt-becker","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-nhl-draft","13":"tag-nhl-entry-draft","14":"tag-nittany-lions","15":"tag-penn-state"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115874786673347101","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400997","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=400997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}