{"id":591123,"date":"2026-06-04T16:09:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/591123\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T16:09:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:09:18","slug":"nhl-analyst-explains-how-gavin-mckennas-pros-outweigh-cons-for-maple-leafs-draft-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/591123\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL analyst explains how Gavin McKenna’s pros outweigh cons for Maple Leafs draft pick"},"content":{"rendered":"

NHL analyst explains how Gavin McKenna’s pros outweigh cons for Maple Leafs draft pick<\/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 favorite to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft for years.<\/p>\n

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He starred in the Western Hockey League for the Medicine Hat Tigers, and then he shone brightly in the college ranks at the NCAA level for Penn State.<\/p>\n

Now, the draft is nearly here, and the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> are the team that won the top pick in the lottery.<\/p>\n

It’s about this time that everyone starts to wonder whether McKenna is really right, or whether everyone has just left him atop the board because he’s been there for so long.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Max Domi’s surgery had something go ‘terribly wrong’<\/a><\/p>\n

Daily Faceoff prospect analyst Steven Ellis<\/a> sees both sides of the coin, but in his most recent mock draft, he still has McKenna atop the board.<\/p>\n

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“I get the reasons to pass on McKenna \u2013 is his B game good enough? But his A game is something no team will want to pass up,” Ellis writes.<\/p>\n

Ellis then delves deeper into McKenna’s game, and he gives him a couple of impressive comparisons.<\/p>\n

“He has some of the best hands from a prospect we\u2019ve seen in years and processes the game at such a high level,” Ellis writes. “He\u2019ll be perfect in a top-line role for years to come. I\u2019m not worried about him being a smaller forward, either \u2013\u00a0his build is very similar to that of both Patrick Kane<\/a> and Nikita Kucherov<\/a> when they first broke into the league. McKenna can handle the pressure, too \u2013 he\u2019s\u00a0been in the spotlight\u00a0for half a decade.”<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Canucks make Gavin McKenna decision that Maple Leafs, Sharks don’t make<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Maple Leafs want a quick bounceback, yes, but they also can’t afford to pass up the best player available.<\/p>\n

Yes, there are cases to be made for other guys, but it’s hard to actually leapfrog McKenna here.<\/p>\n

Toronto could still surprise, but most analysts still seem to think that McKenna will end up being the first player taken.<\/p>\n

More NHL news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHL analyst explains how Gavin McKenna’s pros outweigh cons for Maple Leafs draft pick originally appeared on The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[462],"tags":[894,766,5,890,767,4,465,466,1335,2821,6091,31,769],"class_list":["post-591123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl-draft","tag-canucks","tag-gavin-mckenna","tag-hockey","tag-max-domi","tag-medicine-hat-tigers","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-draft","tag-nhl-entry-draft","tag-nikita-kucherov","tag-patrick-kane","tag-steven-ellis","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-western-hockey-league"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116692711068569028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591123","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=591123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}