Maple Leafs waste no time burdening Gavin McKenna with pressure

In his first remarks about rookie Gavin McKenna ahead of the year, new Leafs head coach Jim Hiller wanted it both ways.

There were the expected nods at letting the 18-year-old come along at his own pace. And then there were the buts. But he does have Auston Matthews. And William Nylander was pretty good right away.

“We’re not going to set any ceiling on him at all,” Hiller said.

Hear that, kid? You’re ceilingless.

You don’t need to have played in the pros to know how that works – ‘Okay, no ceiling. Start rising. At your own pace. No need to … is that how high you’re thinking of going? No, no, that’s fine. Just, yeah, whatever.’

The pressure the Leafs had promised not to apply was already being applied. Talking so much about the absence of it ginned it into existence.

In an early practice, McKenna deked out of a corner while under pressure, and the Leafs acted like they’d just witnessed the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Hiller drew particular attention to the move. Whole stories were written about it.

McKenna was put into heavy media rotation. He is as regular a televised presence as the guys making big money to front the logo. The press loves him because unlike his other famous colleagues, McKenna doesn’t speak like he’s refusing to answer on the grounds that anything he says might tend to incriminate him. For now, his eyes are still lit from behind.

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In the lead-up to opening night, McKenna said he’d dreamed he’d had a good first game.

As good as Auston Matthews’s four-goal debut?

“I’ve been told many times [about that],” McKenna said.

McKenna did not score on opening night. Instead, he looked like what he is – a skinny teenager who has zero experience playing with grown men. He was nervous and out of sorts.

And just like that, the conversation around him changed. Nobody used the word ‘bust,’ but the warning was meant to be understood. You’re headed down the wrong path.

In Toronto, things work on the opposite of the Zhou Enlai scale. It’s never too early to say.

When McKenna hadn’t scored after the first three nights, that was the biggest news coming out of the team. Time for a line change? Something more radical?

McKenna got one in the fourth, and his sainted tally led game stories. Bust era over. Start putting bollards up and down Bay Street.

We’re now five games into his career, and McKenna is somewhere between Sidney Crosby and Alexandre Daigle. Depending on how he does on a given night, he is either The One Who Was Promised or the iceberg carving a hole in the franchise. If he is foolish enough to open social media after one of the down efforts, his phone must make a sound like it’s broadcasting up from a ring of hell.

This is why no hockey parent should wish for their boy to end up in Toronto. Like Saturn, this city eats children.

You can already see it happening to McKenna. Two weeks in, surrounded by at least a couple of hall of famers, on a team that claims to be a contender, in a market that thinks patience is a card game, he is by far the biggest story. His performances are charted like Olympic outings. As if a meaningless game in October against Nashville, Ottawa or whoever is a big chance to prove you’ve got the right stuff.

In what sensible world would any team allow this to happen? A few other franchises have it done to them. Only Toronto leans into it.

Blaming the hockey club is too simple. It is part of a much larger business. McKenna is a human widget in it.

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Where Matthews and Nylander are old soldiers who remind everyone of terrible defeats, McKenna is virgin content soil. Asking Rogers to let McKenna work anonymously on his craft for a couple of years is like asking a shark to go vegan. If there’s value to be surfaced from him, they’ll frack it up if they have to.

I have memorized that ‘Rogers Guy’ ad he does with Michael Cera. I didn’t want to, but it’s in such heavy rotation that it’s been Manchurian Candidate’d it into my brain.

What is it with Canada and all forms of television? We’ve been watching it just as long as everyone else on Earth. Why does our version still look so janky?

Go to a game, and McKenna’s name is on the back of more fan jerseys than any other player save Matthews. And based off opening night, I’d call that a draw.

Matthews didn’t fold under this sort of pressure, but Matthews is American. It makes a difference. McKenna is under a double expectation – save the Leafs, inherit Team Canada.

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Another big difference – the team Matthews joined was an AHL franchise. By the time his job went from vibes-oriented to results-based, Matthews had been a pro for three years.

If the Leafs don’t win at least a couple of playoff rounds this year, it will be a disaster. And whose fault do you think that will be?

It was different for Matthews, and I would still argue that the Leafs have ruined him as well. Contrast the dead-eyed lifer you see at his day job with the just-happy-to-be-here sort who showed up for the U.S. Olympic team in Milan. That was a guy on a two-week pass from the asylum.

Had Toronto been smart about this, they’d have done more than bubblewrap McKenna. They’ve have vaulted him. Not on the ice, but off it. All questions about him would have been slapped back with some version of, ‘He’s an apprentice. All he needs to do is learn.’ Better still, don’t talk about him at all.

But they didn’t do that, and now it’s too late. McKenna will have to do it the hard way – while being minutely observed by one of the most overreactive fanbases on the planet. If he turns out, it’s a triumph of individual will. If he doesn’t, a whole village is to blame.