There are prospects and then there are prospects. Gavin McKenna is talented enough and young enough, tearing up the WHL as a teen, and hockey-knowers have a good enough track record of identifying franchise-changing youths early, that the 2026 NHL Draft is settled at the top more than 14 months out. If you listen to the hype—and he's done nothing but live up to it so far—McKenna is the rare 17-year-old who already belongs in the consciousness of the casual fan, not just that of the scouts and the weirdos who are really into juniors. So, here's what a number of shitty NHL teams are going to be tanking for next year:
"Tried to [take] it behind my back to get him moving one way and then turn the other way," McKenna said, adding that he's attempted that move on his outdoor rink back home but not in a game. His willingness to break it out here speaks as much to his confidence as his creativity.
McKenna, from Whitehorse, Yukon, is lighting up the Western Hockey League playoffs for his Medicine Hat Tigers. Early in the second round, he's recorded five goals and 14 assists in seven games. But despite the impression given by this clip, McKenna hasn't necessarily been playing with his food. The left wing has simply spent year after year playing against older, stronger competition, and consistently shown himself to be more than its equal.
The numbers are comical, even for WHL numbers. This season, in which he turned 17 years old in December, he scored 41 goals and 88 assists in 56 games played against mostly 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds. Last season it was 97 points in 61 games, as he won rookie of the year. Even the tail end of 2022–23, when he dipped his toes in the WHL waters after being drafted No. 1 as a 14-year-old, he scored better than a point per game. If prospect development is about moving up the ranks until a kid finds his level of competition, McKenna hasn't found his yet.
McKenna's received the level of hype that in the recent past has accompanied players like Connor Bedard, Auston Matthews, and Connor McDavid, but, interestingly, he's the rare potentially generational prospect to play wing rather than center. It's a testament to his ice vision that even from the wing, he's able to create opportunities for his teammates. Part of that playmaking prowess comes from a mature awareness, and part simply from being dangerous enough with the puck that he draws defenders just by existing.
As both goalscorer and facilitator, and with his relatively small frame (he's listed at 6-foot-0 and 165 pounds), the comparison that keeps coming up among scouts is Patrick Kane, even if their games aren't necessarily that similar. In fact, scouts have struggled to find apt comps. "He brings so many elements that I think you have to include many players when you think of comparing him," one scout at NHL Central Scouting said. Observed another: "We don't use the term 'five-tool player' in hockey as much as you hear it used in other sports, but McKenna's one of those guys. He's got it."
It's important to hold off on the coronation. Can't-miss guys do miss. They can peak early, or they can end up in situations that stymie their potential (I'm not saying that's what's happening to Bedard in Chicago, but I'm not not saying it either). McKenna looked pedestrian, for the first time in his life, at world juniors—not that any of his Canadian teammates looked much better. But playmaking skills like his translate to any league, the NHL being no exception. So if in a couple years McKenna is tearing up the show, and if you consume literally no other hockey media, you'll remember you heard about him here first.
