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

[Preston]

I watched some prospects show with Wheeler and Pronman and man, they hate McKenna. I think a lot of scouts do tbh and this has been the case all season long as I read back, so it's not just an anti Leafs thing. He is frustrating to watch and are maybe letting their eye testy stuff cloud what they see on the clear and obvious production. He's definitely one of the more unique guys compared to a Celebrini, Hughes or even Bedard in that he's the type that can be invisible all game and then you look on the scoresheet and he had 4 points. He's not much of a possession driver and kind of just coasts most of the game until he's given the puck and works his magic. Or tries too much and turns it over

Pronman said he feels it may be basically a tie between him and Reid for him and in the event of a tie, you should go for the guy who plays the more important position. He was on the fence and still ultimately had McKenna at 1, but he wouldn't hate on the Leafs if they picked Reid. They all felt it was really close.

But for me just having stats in my face, I think it's a no brainer that he's the guy.

 

[Preston]

99% star probabilities ppg at NHL level
Mcdavid - 1.56
Celebrini - 1.17
Matthews - 1.13
Hughes - .99
Tavares - 0.94
Bedard - 0.93


There is a range of eliteness obviously. But even if McKenna is at the bottom, he is basically a guaranteed ppg player.

I don't think he is at the bottom though because his playmaking is basically the equivalent of Matthews scoring.

In terms of PPG, I don't have much doubts that he's gonna be a PPG+ guy tbh. He just may not have the impact of some of the other guys if he's indeed not the best possession guy and largely a PP merchant. But fuck, if he's a 100 point guy, who cares.

 

[Volcanologist]

if we're talking any pick but #1 overall then I could see this being a more difficult choice.

but we can't pass on a player this talented.

 

[leafman101]

Even if thats all he is, you can't tell me scoring isn't the most important thing in hockey. not scoring is why we lost in the first round 9 years in a row.

 

[MindzEye]

He's not much of a possession driver and kind of just coasts most of the game until he's given the puck and works his magic.

My understanding of this past season is that he lapped the field in possession stats, no?

I hear complaints about his motor a lot and that when he doesn't have the puck he's not waving his arms around and moving his feet super hard to try to get it back and instead positions himself as he thinks he needs to for the play to develop. I don't say this lightly, but he seems to have that uber hockey IQ that guys like Gretz & Mario had and they just understood how the play was going to develop and where to be rather than running around chasing the play to "make things happen" that scouts prefer so much.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

I haven't been able to stop myself from contemplating an alternate reality where Marner wasn't a jerkoff and stayed with the Leafs, and somehow the season went down the toilet anyway (say Marner was injured all year) and we landed McKenna, and ended up with both these guys. Without an injury to Marner (or a contract holdout all year would've worked too), there'd have been no way to avoid getting a few more points and losing the pick to Boston. So, it was basically necessary for Marner to go for McKenna to arrive, but can't help thinking what might've been, again, in an alternate universe.

 

[LeafGm]

I watched some prospects show with Wheeler and Pronman and man, they hate McKenna. I think a lot of scouts do tbh and this has been the case all season long as I read back, so it's not just an anti Leafs thing. He is frustrating to watch and are maybe letting their eye testy stuff cloud what they see on the clear and obvious production. He's definitely one of the more unique guys compared to a Celebrini, Hughes or even Bedard in that he's the type that can be invisible all game and then you look on the scoresheet and he had 4 points. He's not much of a possession driver and kind of just coasts most of the game until he's given the puck and works his magic. Or tries too much and turns it over

Pronman said he feels it may be basically a tie between him and Reid for him and in the event of a tie, you should go for the guy who plays the more important position. He was on the fence and still ultimately had McKenna at 1, but he wouldn't hate on the Leafs if they picked Reid. They all felt it was really close.

But for me just having stats in my face, I think it's a no brainer that he's the guy.

I have a very hard time giving a crap what either of these guys think, considering Wheeler is, well, Wheeler. And the guy Pronman thought we should draft instead of Matthews is currently a healthy scratch for the Habs.

 

[MindzEye]

Fwiw, this is the best analytics breakdown I've found for McKenna this year. It has some interesting and some less interesting points.

2025-26 CHN Rookie of the Year

The race for our Rookie of the Year came down to some obvious candidates: Gavin McKenna of Penn State, Porter Martone of Michigan State and Ethan Wyttenbach of Quinnipiac.Because of how close this is, ...

www.collegehockeynews.com

Gavin McKenna has the flashiest stat line on paper: 51 points, 22.5 minutes per game, and elite metrics in transition play.

Three things lower his score somewhat, enough to make a difference:

1. His assists are heavily PP-driven. Of his 36 assists, 16 came on the power play (11 primary, 5 secondary). Power-play production occurs at 2.8x the even-strength rate per minute of ice time. CHIP discounts PP primary assists to 0.55 (from 0.70 at even strength), which costs McKenna about 4 points relative to flat weighting.

2. His ice time is inflated by PP deployment. McKenna plays 22.5 min/gp, but only 16.6 of that is at even strength. His 5.5 PP minutes per game are enormous. CHIP's TOI adjustment uses only ES minutes, so his TOI boost is a modest 7% instead of the 42% it would be if that TOI were weighted the same.

3. Negative plus/minus on a mediocre team. McKenna's -7 is below even Penn State's modest team average. The plus/minus adjustment costs him about 1.6 points relative to a neutral player.

To his credit, McKenna partially recovers through two things the other two don't have: elite process metrics (+2.5 from transition data that goes beyond what his stats already predict) and meaningful PK time (+0.8). His playmaking is real — just that a portion of it was on the power play, and that's worth less.

 

[Preston]

My understanding of this past season is that he lapped the field in possession stats, no?

I hear complaints about his motor a lot and that when he doesn't have the puck he's not waving his arms around and moving his feet super hard to try to get it back and instead positions himself as he thinks he needs to for the play to develop. I don't say this lightly, but he seems to have that uber hockey IQ that guys like Gretz & Mario had and they just understood how the play was going to develop and where to be rather than running around chasing the play to "make things happen" that scouts prefer so much.

I watch these things because enough people have blasted McKenna that I feel it's worth listening to. I don't really have a verdict or anything. Just reporting what they said and what the scouts that they speak to say! They're obviously morons and I don't take them seriously but there's enough noise there to do some extra digging and wonder.

 

[Preston]

With that said, his offensive upside and likelihood to reach those crazy high levels isn't much of a question for me. It would be shocking if he didn't, too many priors out there that suggest he's a near lock. For me the question is how much of a 5 on 5 line driver can he be?

 

[MindzEye]

So the two best NCAA metrics that appear to be available publicly are from College Hockey News, they have a CHIPS metric as well as an individual xG metric. McKenna was 2nd among freshmen to Porter Martone in CHIPS (Martone of course is 14 months older and just scored 10 points in his first 9 career regular season games as a Flyer) 12th overall. and 26th in the NCAA in xG but notably the Big 10 & Hockey East are by far the best divisions in the NCAA and McKenna played for a mediocre team in the better of the two.

If you keep it to just big 10 and hockey east

CHIP: 6th (2nd among freshman to Martone)
xG: 12th (2nd among freshman to Martone)

 

[MindzEye]

With that said, his offensive upside and likelihood to reach those crazy high levels isn't much of a question for me. It would be shocking if he didn't, too many priors out there that suggest he's a near lock. For me the question is how much of a 5 on 5 line driver can he be?

So I don't know enough about those college metrics to trust them at all, but McKenna ranking so highly on an xG metric while playing for a mid ass program in the best division in NCAA hockey suggests that play driving isn't a problem for him.

I'm sure there are proprietary trackers out there that have much better data though, I would assume some of our intrepid online nerds will be trying to find as many McKenna nuggets as they can over the next few weeks.

 

[zeke]

Yeah the numbers seem pretty clear on this tbh. I hadn't looked at them before but now that i have it's a no brainer.

Only issue is there's a good chance that a #1D comes from this top 5 and that's always going to make you wonder...but good luck guessing which guy it is.

 

[MindzEye]

Yeah the numbers seem pretty clear on this tbh. I hadn't looked at them before but now that i have it's a no brainer.

Only issue is there's a good chance that a #1D comes from this top 5 and that's always going to make you wonder...but good luck guessing which guy it is.

It's Carels. Carels is going to be the "what if".

He's fucking good. But the scouting weirdos keep trying to call him 5th-6th overall.

But you can't take Carels at the #1, McKenna has multiple scoring title level talent.

 

[Preston]

It's Carels. Carels is going to be the "what if".

He's fucking good. But the scouting weirdos keep trying to call him 5th-6th overall.

But you can't take Carels at the #1, McKenna has multiple scoring title level talent.

It's so weird with Carels. They say Carels is limited offensively, struggles to make the first pass but is good defensively. And Reid is super elite offensively and struggles defensively.

But then I look at the numbers and I'm like wait that doesn't check out.

Pronman also noted that Reid looked better than McKenna at the World Juniors. Because of course he used a two week tournament as a major datapoint.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

YouTube scouting report on Carels is super duper. He’ll be amazing.

 

[MindzEye]

Something else re: McKenna, this was from his first chunk of games in the NCAA where he was struggling and the hockey world was questioning whether he was #1

What's going on with Gavin McKenna at Penn State?

Why Gavin McKenna is doing better than you might think, and how he can take his game to the next level.

www.eliteprospects.com

If he's at Michigan instead of Penn State, is there ever any doubt?

 

[MindzEye]

It's so weird with Carels. They say Carels is limited offensively, struggles to make the first pass but is good defensively. And Reid is super elite offensively and struggles defensively.

But then I look at the numbers and I'm like wait that doesn't check out.

Pronman also noted that Reid looked better than McKenna at the World Juniors. Because of course he used a two week tournament as a major datapoint.

These guys all jerk off over short tournament showings. The Hlinka, WJHC, etc.

 

[LeafGm]

Yeah, it’ll hurt if someone taken a few picks after our selection turns into the stud #1 defenseman this organization has been searching for and failing to find for our entire lives.

But it’d hurt more if we pick the defenseman out of this crew that turns into Barret Hayton instead of Quinn Hughes, while McKenna goes on somewhere else and becomes an Art Ross threat.

 

[MindzEye]

Yeah, it’ll hurt if someone taken a few picks after our selection turns into the stud #1 defenseman this organization has been searching for and failing to find for our entire lives.

But it’d hurt more if we pick the defenseman out of this crew that turns into Barret Hayton instead of Quinn Hughes, while McKenna goes on somewhere else and becomes an Art Ross threat.

Yup. So the decision should be easy. Don't overthink it and take McKenna. If someone wants to blast your doors off with an obscene, Eric Lindrosesque offer, then by all means do your thing and trade down. But short of someone else in the top 5 deciding to commit seppuku on the alter of Gavin McKenna, just take the kid and let's go.