Tavares can relate to the pressures of being the top pick in the draft, having been selected first overall by the New York Islanders in 2009. He spent his first season living with the family of teammate Doug Weight and learned what such mentorship means to such a young player trying to cope with life on and off the ice.
Almost two decades later, the 35-year-old Tavares has taken over Weight’s role as landlord, in this case for McKenna. Only this time, the situation is a bit different from his own with the Islanders.
Tavares points out that, having grown up in the hockey fishbowl that is the Toronto area, he was accustomed to being under the omnipresent microscope. McKenna, on the other hand, is from Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory, a remote city of 35,000 that is about 950 miles north of Edmonton.
As such, the potential culture shock is a legitimate thing, especially when McKenna starts being recognized almost anywhere he goes in Toronto.
But Tavares said he feels the teenager will be able to handle it with the help of the support group with the Maple Leafs that includes himself, captain Auston Matthews, team ambassador Wendel Clark and senior executive adviser of hockey operations Mats Sundin. All four were No. 1 overall picks and all four spent chunks of their respective careers with Toronto.
“I mean, he’s going to have to experience for himself to really know what it’s like, right,” Tavares told NHL.com Wednesday at the NHL/NHLPA North American Player Media Tour. “And I think you try to set an example for him, especially Auston and I. I mean, all the veteran guys will, too, but I think certainly Auston and I with the parallels of being the first overall picks. And in Auston’s case, he came from the nontraditional hockey market and upbringing of Arizona, so there’s a process of coping with the attention and the spotlight that comes with it in Toronto.
“I think it’s just a matter of showing him just how we carry ourselves and share our experiences when the time is right. And just the natural flow of developing a relationship and building trust and seeing how and what we say when it’s appropriate.
“It’s amazing all the mentorship he’ll have from all of us to help him along. That’s the exciting part. And just being around him for the past two or three weeks, I’ve been impressed how he carries himself, how humble he is, how driven he is, how passionate he is.”
Most importantly, Tavares has been encouraged by the way McKenna has embraced being a Maple Leaf without even having played his first game for the franchise.
“There will be certain moments where he’ll feel it inside, but he’s excited to play for a storied franchise like Toronto,” Tavares said. “What I’ve tried to tell him, and Auston has done the same thing, is that people are going to love you and are excited to have you and believe in you.”
Tavares said he was putting his daughter to bed the night of May 5 when the Maple Leafs won the draft lottery and the right to draft McKenna seven weeks later.
“I could feel my phone going off in my pocket at the time, and just had a premonition that we’d won it,” he said. “I checked it and that’s exactly what happened. Now, with Gavin here, with additions like (defenseman) Darren Raddysh and (goalie) Sergei Bobrovsky, I think we can be a strong contender this season.
“We just have to go out there and do it.”
