McKenna gets closest he'll find to rookie-year homecoming with Maple Leafs

VANCOUVER -- Gavin McKenna had his first NHL homecoming Saturday -- or at least the closest thing to it when you're from Whitehorse, Yukon.

The No. 1 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, played in front of family and friends, including his parents, when the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Vancouver Canucks 4-2 at Rogers Arena, a place he watched games as a kid, even though it was nearly 1,500 miles away from home.

"It was cool," McKenna said. "Obviously, a lot of Leaf fans here as well, so to play in front of my family, came to a couple Canucks games growing up, so to play in that barn and play against that team was pretty cool."

McKenna's first Western Canada road trip with Toronto already included stops at the Edmonton Oilers, a 7-2 win Oct. 24, where he saw flags representing the Yukon and Tr'ondek Hwech'in First Nation in the stands, and a 5-2 loss at the Calgary Flames two nights later. There was also a first visit to the Seattle Kraken, where the 18-year-old had his first two-goal game in the NHL in Toronto's 5-4 loss at Climate Pledge Arena on Oct. 28, before wrapping up the road trip in Vancouver with a suite full of family and friends wearing No. 92 Maple Leafs jerseys. 

Toronto (8-6-2) finished the trip 2-2-0 and McKenna had two goals and two assists amid a lot of media attention. He has 11 points (five goals, six assists) in 16 games, tied with Boston Bruins forward James Hagens for first among NHL rookies.

"I thought it was a good road trip, solid," McKenna said. "Playing with a few different lines, so I thought 5-on-5 in the second period tonight was one of my better periods of the year and could have had a couple (goals). I think just keep building off this. I think it's a lot of fun on the road, playing new teams, different styles, so getting used to that and just having fun out there."

McKenna was robbed by the left pad of Canucks goalie Leevi Merilainen on a backdoor chance as part of the top power-play unit midway through the first period Saturday. He started the game on the top line with Auston Matthews and Jack Roslovic but was moved down to a line with Dakota Joshua and Colton Sissons late in the first period. 

"I actually thought Sissons, Joshua and McKenna were really effective," Maple Leafs coach Jim Hiller said. "It's probably the most Gavin's had the puck in the O-zone in a game, I would think, with the puck on his stick. He was dangerous, so really like the looks of that and once it's going, there's penalties, and so you get things mixed up just a little bit coming out of different penalties and once we got that going, it looked like it worked pretty good, so we stuck with it."

McKenna wasn't complaining about getting moved around. 

"When you're in the NHL, you're playing with all the best hockey players in the world, so it's pretty easy to jell out there with those guys as well when you're so tight with them off the ice," McKenna said. "So, wherever I'm playing in the lineup, I'm willing to do it and play with whoever."

The bigger adjustment has been learning when to lean on the high-end skill that made him the first pick in the draft, and when to make safer plays. 

"That's part of the learning process is learning when to make those plays and I think for me, those turnovers have gone down over the year, so that's something I'm happy with and something I can keep working on though," said McKenna. "It all depends on the time of the game as well. Late in the third, up a goal, you probably can't make that play and risk it. But there are times in the game where you know I'm willing to make that play, and sometimes it'll work, sometimes it won't. That's just kind of my style of hockey."