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

mbow30 said:
Thing with McKenna’s is its not like he tanked this year.

He finished 2nd in ppg and 5th in ncaa scoring playing for a second or third rate d1 program and second on team Canada in scoring at the Wjcs as the youngest player on the team.

Nobody in his draft class has his pedigree. It’s a no doubt first pick and the leafs would be dumb as shit to take anybody else.
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McKenna had a really good year in the NCAA that only wasn't otherwordly because of a hilariously low OISH% in the first half.
 
LeafGm said:
I don't follow Pronman closely enough to know, but is galaxy-braining the consensus first overall pick a regular thing for him? Because if the only two times he's done this are 2016 and 2026, that looks a wee bit suspicious.
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He's been critical of Gavin all year and still has him #1 even after the leafs lottery win. So he's been consistent. He spoke recently and said he wouldn't be critical if the leafs picked a d tho just because it's so close and they need d, so he's not completely enamored with him as a can't miss #1. It's dumb but it's not out of leafs hate imo.

His only other outlier year since 2016 was when he had svechnikov over dahlin.
 
MindzEye said:
The team is a fucking wagon. It's so hard to know who is carrying the water when the team is a fucking wagon. He's 4th among forwards on that team in PPG. He's the youngest of the 4, but still

Benak (D+1, 4th rd): 1.60ppg
O'Brien (D+1, 1st rd): 1.76ppg
Vanacker (D+2, 1st rd): 1.33ppg
Malhotra (D): 1.25ppg

I would be taking a long ass look at his 5v5 numbers vs that stacked ass powerplay.
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Could be interesting if he did that without pp1 time.

And as I said, his playoffs are at another level. Would like to see his season stats, primary points, 5 on 5 points, on-ice s% etc.
 
Preston said:
Could be interesting if he did that without pp1 time.

And as I said, his playoffs are at another level. Would like to see his season stats, primary points, 5 on 5 points, on-ice s% etc.
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FWIW---9 of Malhotra's 29 goals and 30 of his 84 points came on the power-play.

And those numbers put him 5th on his team in power-play goals & 4th on his team in power-play points.
 
I would be happy if we were drafting lower and we had a shot at some of the defensive talent.

But, as we are drafting first, there is only one choice. That would be Mckenna and his party mama
 
Malhotra needed to work his way up the lineup. And by the playoffs he was their top dog.

Not categorical but playoff scoring In major jr does seem to be a fairly good barometer. The top guys tend to put up crazy numbers and the second tier guys who pump stats I. Jr but level off In the pros tend to fall closer to the ppg range - prob because you weed out the bad teams and the young developing teams plus coaches stop worrying about dev and just play the hell out of their top talents.

But malhotra at one would be a fucking reach.
 
mbow30 said:
Malhotra needed to work his way up the lineup. And by the playoffs he was their top dog.

Not categorical but playoff scoring In major jr does seem to be a fairly good barometer. The top guys tend to put up crazy numbers and the second tier guys who pump stats I. Jr but level off In the pros tend to fall closer to the ppg range - prob because you weed out the bad teams and the young developing teams plus coaches stop worrying about dev and just play the hell out of their top talents.

But malhotra at one would be a fucking reach.
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25 points over the final 20 games of the season, identical to his whole season PPG. If he had worked his way up the line, it doesn't appear to have changed his production until the playoffs.
 
Leafin' said:
Keeping Berube to start the year would be such a waste. Can’t believe this is even a convo.
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Hard to know if it’s actually a convo or just a bunch of bullshit generated from a select few “reporters” (CJ & Dreger) that drive clicks based on negative coverage. We’ll know soon enough.
 
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