oronto Maple Leafs<\/a>. Now, McKenna is getting his first taste of the NHL, not through any on-ice action…but with his first ever video game rating as an NHL plyaer.<\/p>\nWith EA NHL 27 set to be released on September, anticipation surrounding how the rookies will be rated, especially McKenna, rose. Now, Maple Leafs fans and Penn State fans have their answer. McKenna will head into his first NHL season as an 81 overall. He has every chance to improve that rating, and even jokingly talked about how high his rating could become in his first NHL season when it was revealed to him.<\/p>\n
If his freshman season with the Nittany Lions was anything to go by, he has every chance of improving his rating. On his way to earning Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors, McKenna tallied 51 points, with 15 goals and an astounding 36 assists to lead Penn State to the first round of the Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament, where the Nittany Lions eventually lost to Minnesota-Duluth. What’s even more intriguing is his time in the WHL, where play is more similar to the NHL level. In three seasons with the Medicine Hat Tigers, McKenna had 244 points to his name, with his best season coming in 2024-25, where he scored 41 goals and had 88 assists on the year.<\/p>\n
The potential for McKenna to explode onto the scene is high. And now, with his first ever NHL 27 ranking, he has the standard that has been set. It’s up to him now whether or not that rating will improve.<\/p>\n
Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aug. 26, 2026, 10:07 a.m. ET Penn State fans have become all too familiar with the best hockey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[462],"tags":[50358,5,4,465,466,70913,59228,51061,50621,50364,50825,50363,68601,50365,50642,50361],"class_list":["post-650377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl-draft","tag-accessfree","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-draft","tag-nhl-entry-draft","tag-sourcenittany-lions-wire","tag-sstssportscollegenittany-lionshockey","tag-sstsnhockey","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-taghockey","tag-tagnhl-entry-draft","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsports-games","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtoronto-maple-leafs","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117166764404335486","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650377","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=650377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}