Penton: No guarantee, but McKenna likely No. 1
By Bruce Penton
Will there be a surprise when National Hockey League general managers and head scouts get together this week in Buffalo for the annual draft of 18-year-old players?
A big surprise, of course would be that the No. 1 pick owned by the Toronto Maple Leafs was someone other than Gavin McKenna, the Whitehorse, Yukon flash who starred for two seasons in the Western Hockey League and then spent the past campaign skating for Penn State in the U.S. college system.
For almost two years, McKenna has been pegged as the consensus No. 1 pick. Sporting goods stores in Toronto are already selling Leafs’ jerseys with ‘McKenna 72’ on the back. Most mock drafts published in recent weeks by respected hockey journalists rank McKenna first.
But then, along comes a feature article in The Athletic by Corey Pronman which pours water on the theory that McKenna will be a slam dunk No. 1 selection. The writer quotes an unnamed scouting director as saying “I wouldn’t want to be picking (No.) 1 this year. There’s a very good chance the best player in this draft doesn’t even go in the top five.”
That’s the problem with drafting 18-year-olds. Sometimes it takes four or five years to get a true reading on who is the obvious best player. Hot scorers in junior hockey sometimes flame out and settle in as third-line centres; some lesser acclaimed defenceman might add 20 pounds of muscle and became a Hall of Famer.
For now, however, McKenna seems to be the consensus No. 1 pick. although he doesn’t seem to get scouts drooling like they did for Matthew Schaefer, Macklin Celebrini or Connor Bedard. A team with plenty of offence and some defensive deficiencies might be tempted to rate defenceman Chase Reid, Daxon Rudolph, Keaton Verhoeff or Carson Carels No. 1. The recent hiring of Manny Maholtra as coach of the Canucks has created a fly-in-the-ointment situation for Vancouver, which has the No. 3 pick. Forward Caleb Maholtra, Manny’s son, is a definite first-rounder and some are wondering whether family considerations will affect their drafting philosophy.
In many of the mock drafts printed recently, Swedish forward Ivar Stenberg was No. 1 or No. 2 alongside McKenna. While scouts agree McKenna has some deficiencies, they are also in agreement that he has that “special skill” that comes along so rarely. “I would have a really hard time passing on the special skill,” a veteran scout said in the Pronman story. “That’s the kind of stuff that gets you fired.”
Ultimately, when Commissioner Gary Bettman announces the No. 1 pick this week, it will almost assuredly be McKenna going to Toronto. His puck handling and playmaking ability could make a 50-goal scorer out of Auston Matthews and his powerplay talents could turn the Leafs’ fortunes around immediately.
A solid defenceman might make more sense in the long run, but the Leafs aren’t a team that avoids the big splash. And this year, that big splash is McKenna.
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Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail, in a column about Mike Babcock’s reputation as a bully: “… the sort of guy who starts rolling up his sleeves if you accidentally bump shoulders in the dairy aisle.”
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Care to comment? Email brucepenton2003@yahoo.ca