McKenna surviving under the Toronto microscope

Having successfully negotiated the biggest speed bump of his rookie season so far, Gavin McKenna was in a generous mood on Monday – so much so that he allowed Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews to switch sticks with him for the morning skate.

While both will stay loyal to their original twigs for the foreseeable future, given the way that the 18-year-old negotiated the minefield of the Toronto media over the weekend, ensuring that – outwardly at least – the relationship with his coach remains on solid ground, it won’t be the last time others want to borrow things from him.

Certainly, there are many professional athletes – Cristiano Ronaldo, for one – who should take notes on the calm manner in which he reacted to his benching for the second half of last Thursday’s loss to the Buffalo Sabres; a career first, according to McKenna.

The rookie’s talent for diplomacy wasn’t lost on his captain either, although Matthews admitted he was hardly surprised given what McKenna has shown since he arrived in Toronto this summer.

“I don’t think anything really shakes him or rattles him,” Matthews said of the first overall draft pick. “I think he’s somebody who just lives in the present moment, makes the best of whatever situation he gets put in, and if it’s not something that he’s happy with, he just keeps working.”

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Much of that work was done over the off-season, when McKenna took part in a Vancouver training camp with several National Hockey League players, including newly appointed San Jose Sharks captain Macklin Celebrini.

Before the two pitted wits for the first time on NHL ice as the Leafs hosted the Sharks Monday, McKenna had tipped his cap to the young superstar – who finished fourth in the scoring race last season as a 19-year-old – for giving him a primer on competing at the NHL level.

“When you see a guy like that, see how well he’s doing, and see how hard he works, I think it kind of shows where you got to get to, and yeah, with how hard he works, I think [it] rubs off on me,” McKenna said. “I hope that’s something I can carry through to guys coming up in the league as well. Show them how to work hard and what it takes.”

Based on McKenna’s summer of training with Celebrini, what it takes can apparently involve up to 17 hours of ice time per week in addition to off-ice gym sessions, as well regular hikes up the famous Grouse Grind, a 2.5-kilometre trail with an average gradient of 30 per cent up the face of Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver, B.C. While the hike’s website says the average time to climb it is between two and two-and-a-half hours, McKenna said his best time was “something like 41” minutes, while Celebrini did it in 38.

However, Celebrini claimed his best Grind time was “a couple years ago, but I think I did in like 34.”

Celebrini said it was fun to get to know McKenna during their workouts, adding that he didn’t really know him before.

While they share commonalities as a pair of former first overall draft picks – Celebrini’s draft was two years ago – the 20-year-old Sharks captain adds that their situations are different. The eruption last week over McKenna getting just nine minutes and 49 seconds of ice time is a case in point. The smallest amount of ice time that Celebrini had his rookie year was 15 minutes and 24 seconds, and he ended up averaging 19:47; through nine games, McKenna has averaged 14:23.

But then the situations they were drafted into are vastly different. San Jose hasn’t made the playoffs since before the pandemic, whereas Toronto missed out last season for the first time in 10 years. Certainly Celebrini wasn’t drafted into a team containing a former NHL MVP and a two-time Vezina Trophy winner, so he was able to be given time to learn on the job, and just as crucially make mistakes largely without being penalized for it.

“It’s just different,” he said. “I think in our situation, we had 20 wins our first year, so that’s not fun, and no one’s enjoying that. So, on this side, I think it’s tough, especially with the attention that he’s getting, and maybe he’s getting scrutinized for all the little things.

“But I think over time, just being on a winning team and being surrounded by that kind of talent and that kind of team, it’ll only help him.”

While Toronto head coach Jim Hiller was taken to task for last week’s treatment of McKenna, with some calling it his first big mistake since he took over from Craig Berube behind the bench this summer, the two have seemingly talked it over and moved on.

Hiller responded by doling out 17:56 of ice time to McKenna during Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the New York Islanders; it was the most ice time McKenna has received so far and was the third most among Leafs forwards.

Asked about the most impressive thing he has seen out of McKenna nine games into his NHL career, Hiller focused on something unrelated to on-ice ability.

“I’ll just say one: The talent is obvious, but his personality, just the way he carries himself, his quiet confidence,” he said. “ … We had a couple days here of questions, but he’s unflappable. Maybe that’s a word I would use with him. Just a really great kid who’s got on a trajectory, he’s going to have a phenomenal career.”