If you can name just one current college hockey player, I bet it's freshman Penn State winger Gavin McKenna. After carving up the ice with the Medicine Hat Tigers and establishing himself as the likely top prize of the 2026 NHL draft lottery, the kid from the Yukon moved to the Big Ten, where he was expected to play one impressive year before signing with whichever bad pro team got the luckiest. He's a little on the small side, though he literally just turned 18, but McKenna's wowed scouts with fantastic production at the WHL level, finesse skating, and brilliant playmaking when the puck is on his stick.
At Penn State, however, there's been a bit of an adjustment in expectations. McKenna's picked up four goals and 14 assists across 16 games, so he's certainly having a very good season by most standards. But there are new questions about how much McKenna can impact the game when he's not working magic with possession, and against the toughest competition that the NCAA can muster—namely Michigan and Michigan State—he's suffered through some outright bad nights. There's nothing entirely alarming about one of the youngest kids on the ice facing adversity at a new level, but the team that falls into the No. 1 pick next year will surely want to take a long, long look at the more aggressive Swedish winger Ivar Stenberg and the prototypical top defenseman at North Dakota, Keaton Verhoeff, even if they pull the trigger on McKenna in the end.
There's a bigger stage for a young hockey player than any Nittany Lions game, though, and it starts every Boxing Day. At the World Juniors, the most talented teens on the verge of NHL stardom showcase their skills and compete for national glory. Team Canada is coming off a couple of disappointing performances in the tournament, but this year's squad is stacked as usual with top prospects like Michael Misa, Porter Martone, Tij Iginla, Verhoeff, McKenna, and more. They squeaked through their first two matchups, and then on Monday, in their third of four prelim contests, they unloaded on Denmark, winning 9-1 in a game that made their opponents look like a peewee team. More importantly, for the purposes of this blog, Gavin McKenna earned a hat trick that vaulted him back to the forefront of the "Who's the most important kid to watch?" discussion.
McKenna had already contributed as an assist man in the previous games, but three goals at the World Juniors turns you into your country's top story. The first, on the power play, was a solid finish off some Canadian passing that made Denmark dizzy. The second was another pretty shot from the circle that zoomed around the goalie's glove. The best was saved for last—a slippery move on a breakaway that froze the netminder in place. Rotten play in Denmark, indeed, but a memorable milestone for the teen idol.
"I was just laughing," said Flames prospect Zayne Parekh. "It was pretty sick. That's just the stuff he does."
No front office is going to base their draft-day decision on this one game, but it still matters. When you're carrying the burden of the "best hockey player at your age" tag, there are only two paths forward: meet everyone's expectations with consistently astounding play, or be a disappointment, even if disappointment means gets drafted third instead of first. The next few months and beyond will be stressful ones for Gavin McKenna, but this night—a hat trick in front of his family while wearing his country's colors—was a way to temporarily pause the doubts.
