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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

The jig is up!!
New photos from secret camera from inside the draft center prior to lottery selections…not yet confirmed but it looks like this might be Chayka moments before Bettman enter the room to start the process
 

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LeafGm said:
Good profile of McKenna!



www.nytimes.com

Why Gavin McKenna could be a franchise-changing player for the Canucks

McKenna is exactly the kind of elite forward prospect that the Canucks desperately need to add to their pipeline.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
Click to expand...
From that point onward, though, he was back to his superstar ways: McKenna racked up 33 points in his last 18 games. He generated a whopping 92 shots on goal in those 18 games despite being a playmaker first and foremost.

1.83 ppg in his final 18 games puts him in some eliiiiiiiite company!
 
18 year old NCAA since 1990
1. Kariya - 2.56
(McKenna second half - 1.83)
2. Fantilli - 1.80
3. Eichel - 1.78
4. Will Smith - 1.73
5. Gabe Perreault - 1.67
6. Jaden Schwartz - 1.57
7. Parise - 1.56
8. Gionta - 1.56
9. Cooley - 1.54
10. St. Louis - 1.53
11. Wyttenbach - 1.48
12. McKenna - 1.46


17 year old WHL/OHL all time
1. Lindros - 2.61
2. McDavid - 2.55
3. Bedard - 2.51 ppg
4. Rob Brown - 2.51 ppg
5. McKenna - 2.30 ppg
6. Toni Tanti - 2.24


16 year old WHL/OHL all time
1. Gretzky - 2.89
2. Tavares 2.00
3. McDavid - 1.76
4. Bellows - 1.76
5. Muller 1.69
6. Glenn Goodall - 1.64
7. Bedard - 1.61
8. McKenna - 1.59
9. Stamkos - 1.46
 
Slinger 48 said:
All the crying about it being fixed is making me bust a gut laughing.

Absolute proof the lottery is legit, ain't no way in hell the NHL would fix anything to benefit the Leafs.
Click to expand...
Yeah I love how on Monday everyone was telling us how no one in the hockey world would even wanna talk to this villain of a GM and by Tuesday Gary’s supposedly fixing lotteries for him.
 
lol
Listening to NHL channel on Sirius..
Buddy is telling the story of when Vancouver entered the league in 1970 with Buffalo, they had a mini lottery draft to determine who was going to pick first, Buff or Vanc... they used a roulette wheel, spun it, and the Sabers got the 1st overall pick, but Clarence Campbell misread it and announced that Vancouver got it... the Sabers GM (Punch Imlach) jumps up and says "no no you read it wrong".. LOL .. that was the Gilbert Perrault draft....
So Canucks have been getting fucked at lottery drafts from day 1

btw, that was the Sittler draft as well..
 
I will say, in the interest of fairness, after a checking a couple of the others on that list, most of them had elite 2nd halves of their college seasons too. Cooley and Eichel were at around ~2ppg, for reference. Whereas Wyttenbach actually slowed down late season.

But I guess the main difference is that McKenna's team was worse than Cooley and Eichel's and he was sort of on an island compared to those two. I think Bedard-ish is a fair enough comparison for him. It's a no brainer #1 pick obviously in a draft like this with no other clear superstar talents.

EDIT: Fantili was at around 2ppg too in the 2nd half. So they all took some time to adjust! Though Gavin and Cooley started off real slow compared to the others.
 
18 year old SHL all time
1. Tomas Sandstrom - 1.03
2. Markus Naslund - 1.00
3. Nylander - 0.95
4. Daniel Sedin - 0.84
5. Nicklas Andersson - 0.82
6. Ivar Stenberg - 0.77
7. Peter Forsberg - 0.72

17 year old Sweu20 all time
1. Dalibor Dvorsky - 2.10
2. Ivar Stenberg 1.96
3. Leo Carlsson - 1.93

16 year old Swe u18 all time
1. Andre Petterson - 2.40
2. Max Westergard - 2.38
3. Ivar Stenberg - 2.31
4. Robert Nilsson - 2.25


Good, but not quite the same.
 
I think McKenna, Reid and Stenberg are the top tier in terms of talent

then Malholtra and Carels.

I have a feeling Vancouver is going to go Malholtra
 
The Stenberg hype train began in Decemberish where it looked like he was putting up a historic season and McKenna was looking quite mediocre. But since January, Stenberg basically stopped scoring and McKenna turned into Eichel/Fantilli. So people haven't fully adapted back to "McKenna is obviously the only reasonable #1 pick." But I think they'll get there.
 
I don’t get Malhotra as a top 5 pick honestly. He’s never had top tier production. He wasn’t even good in the BCHL last year.

I don’t even think he’s the best center (Bjork is a 1C in the SHL).
 
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