Left wing, with Tavares and Nylander
Eighteen years old, first overall, and Jim Hiller has already decided not to say much. Gavin McKenna plays his first game in a Maple Leafs shirt tonight, Toronto against Montreal at Scotiabank Arena, and his coach plans to keep the pre-game address to a handshake and four words.
“Go enjoy the night,” is how Hiller put it. The demands, he said, will come on other evenings.
McKenna lines up at left wing with John Tavares in the middle and William Nylander on the right. The three have skated together at both on-ice sessions since camp opened on Thursday, and what Hiller describes is a line where all three are finding each other rather than one player waiting on the puck.
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Hiller expected deference and found none
The usual risk with an 18-year-old dropped between two established NHL veterans is that he defers. He forces the puck to the famous names instead of making the play in front of him. Hiller went looking for that in camp and came up empty.
“He’s just a nice young man, no air about him,” the coach said, before describing a player who knows precisely how good he is without wearing it.
Auston Matthews has watched the same thing from close range. The Toronto captain went first overall himself in 2016, which makes him the natural reference point in that dressing room. He called McKenna confident, said the line had meshed within days, and pointed at what the teenager can do one on one.
A shorter preseason than the league is used to
Tonight also opens the NHL exhibition calendar, and it looks nothing like recent years. The schedule runs eight days and 65 games, from September 19 through September 26, across 36 NHL and neutral-site venues. That compression comes out of the collective bargaining agreement between the league and the NHLPA, which trades exhibition dates for a regular season stretched to 84 games, two extra divisional fixtures per club.
Seven games go tonight, including a second Toronto and Montreal split-squad meeting, Dallas at St. Louis, Winnipeg at Edmonton, Chicago at Minnesota, Vancouver at Seattle and a neutral-site fixture between Los Angeles and Vegas in Ontario, California. The regular season starts on September 29.
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