Have No Fear: Yukon's Gavin McKenna Is Ready For The Toronto Maple Leafs

While the Carolina Hurricanes were enjoying the longest playoff respite in NHL history, Gavin McKenna was doing a little decompressing of his own before things got really goofy busy.

He and his family loaded up the motorhome and headed to the lake – there are plenty of them where he's from – for a little hiking, fishing, ATV riding and just letting the sun hit his face. And there's lots of it. At this time of year in the Yukon, it comes up at about five in the morning and doesn't go down until around 11 at night.

With his hockey season over and the NHL draft looming, McKenna was in that weird time warp in mid-May where there was a lot to anticipate and, for him at least, a few things to escape.

Through it all, Gadowsky said he never saw McKenna get down or complain about his lot. In fact, he was happiest when people weren't talking about him.

"He doesn't like it when things are about him," Gadowsky said. "He really doesn't. When we went anywhere as a team, he was the first guy to take off his hat, the first guy to go shake someone's hand and the first guy to push his chair in. He's a very polite, very respectful, well-mannered guy."

And with respect to the charges of misdemeanor simple assault and two summary offenses – one count of disorderly conduct and one count of harassment – (the felony aggravated-assault charge was withdrawn) stemming from the bar altercation, Gadowsky said McKenna maintained the same demeanor with his teammates before the incident that he did after.

"He had no problem, because he knows he acted according to his family values," Gadowsky said. "He was very comfortable with that. This was new to me and new to our program, and we learned so much from Gavin about how to handle noise. He's been Gavin McKenna for a long time, and it's very natural to him, but we learned a lot. He does not let anybody else's opinion bother him."

One of the first things McKenna did this year was delete most of his social-media accounts, but you still hear things.

The start of this season was really a bit of a slog for McKenna.

One of the reasons he was looking forward to playing at Penn State was the chance to play with his buddy, Nashville Predators prospect Aiden Fink, but Fink was injured for most of the first half. His cast of linemates seemingly changed from game to game, which made it hard to develop any continuity. And he learned that he was no longer in the WHL, where he could have the puck pretty much whenever he wanted it and could play the game on his terms.

Then the presumptive No. 1 pick started to develop challengers, chief among them Ivar Stenberg, whose Swedish team won the WJC title while Canada finished third.

"Once the world juniors came, and I got to play with some amazing players, I got my confidence back, and during the second half, I figured things out," McKenna said. "I'm confident in myself, and when I'm playing with smart hockey players, I'm at my best. That's why I'm really looking forward to playing with the best players in the world."

The thing about that is, though, you're also playing against the best players in the world, and that can be a huge adjustment.

In his first season in the NHL, Joe Thornton had seven points in 55 games. Yes, you read that correctly.

During his freshman campaign, Brendan Shanahan was asked by an opponent just before a faceoff how things were going for him.

"Not too good," Shanahan said. "I'm tied with Ron Hextall in goals."

Steven Stamkos regularly played fewer than 10 minutes a night in the first half of his rookie season.

So there could very well be another adjustment period with the Maple Leafs. But McKenna has figured things out every step of the way, and there's zero reason to believe that will not be the case in the NHL.

Offensively and creatively, there is nothing McKenna doesn't do well. You can nitpick his defensive awareness and play away from the puck, but those things can be taught.

Vision, poise and an ability to elevate teammates are more innate qualities. His past suggests he'll be more of a playmaker than a pure goal-scorer – unless, of course, he develops a little more selfishness.

TSN director of scouting Craig Button noticed that many of McKenna's passes would "go into a black hole" this season and thinks McKenna's totals would have been better had he not deferred to his linemates.

The words "magician" and "wizard" have been used ad nauseam to describe McKenna's play with the puck, and they're actually not being thrown around lightly.

Had McKenna stayed in Medicine Hat this season, it would have been a case of him playing 3-D chess while everyone else was playing Go Fish.

The same poise and calm he showed this season when things got difficult are what he brings to the game. The way he sees the ice with the puck on his stick is not something that many players have. And as is the case with every elite player, McKenna possesses a hunger to put in the work to get better, and coaches have long marvelled at his need to stay on the ice until he masters a task.

"He's a lot more than just an offensive genius," Gadowsky said. "He led our team in takeaways, and I don't think a lot of people realize that. And the backhand of his stick is amazing. In fact, I don't think he even has a backhand. He has two forehands. He'll send a bullet backhand sauce pass right on someone's tape, and you're like, 'Wow, that was a lucky play.' But then he does it five more times."

"I'm confident in myself, and when I'm playing with smart hockey players, I'm at my best. That's why I'm really looking forward to playing with the best players in the world"

Compliments are welcome, even backhanded ones. McKenna might have turned off his DMs when things got hypercritical this season, but on the other hand, everyone likes to hear nice things about themselves.

McKenna has enough perspective to know that all of this, with the exception of the very serious legal situation, is a bunch of white noise and that the proof will not be in when he gets drafted but what he accomplishes as an NHL player.

And he gets that perspective by going back home to a place that is comfortable and warm – even though temperatures aren't far above freezing in the spring.

It's a place that holds a deep connection for McKenna, who is a proud member of the Tr'ondek Hwech'in (translated as People of the Klondike River) First Nation, descended from his maternal grandfather, Joe Mason, a residential-school survivor who later became a five-time amateur boxing champion in the Yukon.

McKenna heartily embraces his First Nations heritage and is thankful for the place he calls home.

"I love the Yukon, and anyone I've ever brought up here falls in love with it," he said. "It's a beautiful place, and people here have been amazing to me.

"Growing up, it wasn't cheap to fly down south every weekend to find competition. The community sponsored me, and we had lots of family friends chipping in money to help. I love this place. I love all of it and just getting outside."

2026 NHL Draft Tracker: Round 1 Picks, Reports, Rankings And More

Check out expert NHL draft coverage and track the first-round picks as they're announced. You can also catch up on NHL draft rankings, mock drafts, player profiles and more.

This feature appeared in The Hockey News' Draft Preview issue featuring Gavin McKenna on the cover.

Not only does it feature scouting reports on the NHL draft's top 100 prospects, but it also goes further into the stories of some of the top players available, such as McKenna, Ivar Stenberg, Keaton Verhoeff, Carson Carels, JP Hurlbert and the Ruck twins.

There are also team-by-team reports that cover immediate and long-term needs, cap situation, players in the system, shrewd picks from the past and not so shrewd picks. It's worth a read during and after the draft.

Copyright The Hockey News, Roustan Media Ltd.

This story was originally published June 26, 2026 at 7:18 PM.