The votes are in, and the people have spoken: taking the top spot in this year’s Community Draft Board is Penn State winger Gavin McKenna.
Touted as a sure-thing top prospect for years coming into this draft, McKenna has some impressive pedigree behind him — a near-100 point season in his draft-2 year, followed up by a 129-point campaign last season to close out his career in the WHL, before shifting his sights to the NCAA for his draft year, joining a Penn State program on the rise as he looked to build up his game. It wasn’t a perfect season for him, but there’s a lot in the toolkit that he delivered as well as the progress that he was able to demonstrate over the course of that long and sometimes arduous season that will surely leave teams at the top of this draft very excited about him as a player.
Pre-draft rankings
Ranked #1 by Elite Prospects
Ranked #2 by Sportsnet (Jason Bukala)
Ranked #1 by The Athletic (Scott Wheeler)
Ranked #1 by FloHockey (Chris Peters)
Statistics
What’s there to like?
McKenna is known more for his playmaking, rightfully, but his shot is not something to overlook. 15 goals scored is certainly a respectable total for an underage rookie in the NCAA (and, notably, he really picked up the pace through the second half of the season, as his comfort with the league snapped into place), and there’s some sneaky effectiveness in that scoring game. McKenna’s able to do well to wheel a bit and get himself to the soft areas, getting around defenders seemingly with ease, and when he gets into those prime shooting locations, there’s a somewhat underrated quickness and deceptiveness to his shot that’s allowed him to beat college goaltenders at a promising rate.
Much of that elusiveness, too, comes off of the strength of his skating. He’s not an absolute burner, but his quickness makes him particularly effective, as he’s smooth on his edges and able to build up speed in small spaces quickly, giving him a real slipperiness as he maneuvers around defenders in the offensive zone.
Gavin McKenna with a NASTY overtime winner vs Ohio State… one night after dropping 8 points against them 😳🤮pic.twitter.com/X3t2TRKM95
— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) February 22, 2026
That playmaking, though, does get a lot of attention, and for good reason. McKenna is a deft playmaker, with his quickness and his vision of the ice helping to bolster the effectiveness that the rest of his toolkit — his first pass is quick off of his stick and accurate on the tape of his teammates, and the way that he sees the ice allows him to find and hit difficult seams in a way that looks easy.
There’s a lot of patience in his game, all in all, as he isn’t afraid to hold on to the puck a while longer upon entry into the offensive zone, scanning the zone for options from teammates, all the while drawing defenders to him in order to create more space elsewhere on the ice for his linemates to open up for a shot. Those are defenders that are coming down on him more quickly than they did in juniors, but even with that, there’s no panic in his game.
McKenna’s offensive zone maneuvering is one of the hallmarks of his game, the way that he’s able to feed a cycle and wear down opponents on the way to dangerous chances, but he’s just as effective in both leading and making himself an option to receive a pass on the rush, which does quite well round out his offensive game.
That said, the in-zone maneuvering is often very sweet.
Another primary helper for Gavin McKenna tonight. Heady slap-pass to the back post. pic.twitter.com/GxckfzEE0w
— Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) February 22, 2026
McKenna has a real skill for slowing the game down in order to allow himself to maneuver and set up plays, but that’s been something of a mixed bag — he’s pulled off some really stellar plays throughout this season as a result of that work, but there’s a question which lingers about how well he’ll be able to do this at the next level, and not just get exposed in that increased pace of play. Now, the good news is that he also made major progress in this department as the season went on — McKenna made a point of playing with greater pace across the board, but made some particular strides in his forechecking game, getting more intensely in the space of opponents and forcing them into making poor and rushed decisions with the puck, and on top of that, made a real improvement in his ability to transition his game quickly from defense to offense, and vice versa. His game can be quite singular, and there’s room for that in the right moments still, but as the season went on, we really saw him working more effectively in playing a connected game with his teammates as a unit.
And all of this was encouraging to see. It’s rare to see even a top prospect jump into the college game and immediately dominate, and McKenna was no exception, his game is not a finished product, but he’s shown a dedication to improving on the weaker areas of his game in-season, and that hard-working quality combines nicely with his natural and more polished skills to create a very intriguing package, indeed.
What’s not to like?
Particularly with all of that work that he’s put in over this season, there aren’t any huge glaring holes in McKenna’s game. We touched on the skating already, and it’s worth noting that, for all of the effectiveness that he has through his smaller space quickness, his top-end straight line speed leaves a bit to be desired. He isn’t outright slow, far from it, but as that speed sits somewhere in the higher range of average at the NCAA level, it presents as one of the bigger areas for improvement when he ultimately graduates up to the professional level.
Elsewhere, lovers of an extra physical brand of hockey might have some issues with his game, as it isn’t an overly physically engaged style that he tends to bring. Now, this isn’t negatively impacting his complete game in a big way, it’s just more of an issue of stylistic concerns.
And finally, of course, there are also some of those questions about off-ice issues looming above all of this. We won’t spend too much time beleaguering that point, not being legal experts at this blog and all that, but the main point to be made here is that there may be some questions held from teams and they’ll have to bear those out in their pre-draft interview process.
How would he fit in the Flyers’ system?
We can certainly begin this with an acknowledgment that the Flyers are already log jammed in a big way with top-9 wingers in their system, and how that makes things complicated as they look to shuffle the pieces they already have, much less as they might look to add another winger into the mix, but any of those concerns go swiftly out the window when you’re talking about adding a player of McKenna’s caliber.
The Flyers are still well within this period of refining their on-ice system — particularly as the playoffs made clear some of their major deficiencies — and one of the most notable areas in which they’ll need to improve is in getting more out of their offense. The Flyers have some excellent shooters in their mix now, but they’ve faced some ongoing struggles to maintain possession of the puck and set up those shooters in the right spots. It would be hard to argue that one player could come in and provide an immediate and complete fix for them in this area, but a high-end playmaker like McKenna, even as an unfinished product, would certainly do well to get them a lot closer to where they need to be.
Could the Flyers actually get him?
This one is going to unfortunately be a pretty hard no. While there’s some potential for McKenna to drop in this draft — a couple of the major rankings have him second, one has him fourth — it won’t be enough to even move him into a realm where the Flyers could reasonably be able to trade up into. He’ll be a great player for some team, but it just won’t be the Flyers.
What scouts are saying
“McKenna is a flowing skater with corner speed more than straight line speed (he lacks explosiveness in straight bursts), great edges and an ability to make plays at whatever pace is required — with a preference for slowing things down, at times to a fault. He’s impressive at carrying and dodging sticks through neutral ice to create entries. He has a first touch like glue, where the puck just lands and sticks to his blade when he’s catching it, even when it’s coming in hot or into compromising positions. He’s an excellent puck transporter and get-out-of-jail-free card who can skate pucks out of the zone himself and relieve pressure (though I’d like to see him be lower for that more often instead of cheating up ice). McKenna is extremely shifty with the puck, blending shoulder fakes into his playmaking. He has impressive maneuverability and adjustability from his hips down. He plays pucks into space and leads guys at an advanced level. He shields pucks well from defenders’ sticks when he can play in open ice and they try to close on him. He’s constantly changing directions and keeping defenders off him. He pre-scans and sees and reads the game at an elite level. The elements of a brilliant perimeter playmaker are all there.”
-Scott Wheeler, The Athletic
The skill level is undeniable, and his ability to blend skill and playmaking on its own will make him a gazillionaire if things go right. He’ll score, fans will love him, and he has star upside. It’s as strong an individual trait as Connor Bedard’s shot in junior hockey was a few years back. That said, there are still significant concerns. I may be in the minority of not being a huge fan of the circumstances surrounding his arrest earlier this year, but beyond that, McKenna’s style of play is extremely improvisational (admittedly excellent at it though), which requires an outstandingly high level of talent against top tier NHL defending. McKenna relies often on having time and space to think, and using his skill to create gaps to defenders in a way that seems somewhat hard to see in the NHL without being one of the best in the world. The potential is there, but the data paints a very sketchy profile to project. Excellent offensive transition efficiency, but highly, highly reliant on pass receptions and chasing offense in the neutral zone. Tons of shots, but a majority coming from the perimeter. Some decent offensive zone turnover generation, but usually done off errant passes and sloppy board possession by the opposition. I don’t put a ton of weight into a lack of hits, but McKenna hasn’t thrown a single on in my sample. His defensive transition efficiency is among the worse in the draft, especially at the top, left behind on many attempts, relying on reach and soft stick checks, but also having pucks played through him positionally far too often… McKenna is a player who could take a good two-way top line that struggles to score and makes them into an elite unit. He’s clinging to this spot in a tier that is very close to the next one, but he’s going to be an absolutely fascinating player to watch develop and grow, and if things work out, he could be an enormous lightning rod for the sport as a whole.”
-Will Scouch, Scouching
One player comes off the board, another comes on. Welcome to the poll Viggo Bjorck!
“Bjorck is a slick, playmaking center. He has tremendous creativity as both a puck handler and passer. He’s small and a good, but not great, skater, which raises some concerns about his NHL projection, particularly if he can stay in the middle. He’s a battler, though, who’s responsible off the puck and held his own versus men this season at the SHL level in terms of the physicality. He projects as a middle six center.”
-Corey Pronman, the Athletic
All stats via Elite Prospects
