In 2016, when the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted Auston Matthews, everyone knew that the club would eventually become his team.
In the summer of 2024, the Leafs officially became Matthews’ team when they politely stripped John Tavares of the captaincy to give it to Matthews.
And the same thing is likely to happen to Matthews some day, too.
When the Leafs took Gavin McKenna, the countdown began to the day when McKenna officially takes over the team.
That’s not going to happen tomorrow. And it’s certainly not going to happen next year. But it will eventually.
Make no mistake. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just the way that life works out. McKenna, with his quietly impressive start to his NHL career, is on track to become the next great Maple Leafs star.
That became evident on Thursday night in Seattle. The 18-year-old had his first three-point game of his young career, tallying two power play goals. The game would have been celebrated as a breakout performance if not for the awful way the game ended.
McKenna now has five goals and 11 points in 15 games. That’s one heck of a start for a teenager coming off this freshman year in college.
It’s still way too soon to anoint Gavin McKenna as the next Maple Leafs captain
The bottom line is that it’s still way too early to anoint Gavin McKenna as the Maple Leafs next captain.
First, McKenna will need to establish himself as a bona fide NHL star. Now, that’s an interesting point, especially since fans have compared McKenna’s impact to Matthews’ immediate success.
There is a major difference between the situation that McKenna has stepped into and the one Matthews encountered.
When Matthews entered the league, the Maple Leafs were the worst team in the NHL. They had tanked in 2016, specifically to get Matthews. 10 years later, McKenna finds himself on a team with an abundance of talent. As such, McKenna doesn’t need to be the savior. He just needs to learn the game and show that his skill is good enough to make him a star in the league.
That’s it. And if he struggles at times, it won’t be the end of the world. While the Toronto sports media will magnify everything, the pressure on McKenna isn’t nearly as intense as it was on Matthews.
That’s why Gavin McKenna should quietly and gradually take over the Maple Leafs. It won’t be a sudden, impactful arrival. It will be a subtle movement, the kind that should go unnoticed at first, but will eventually make itself too hard to ignore.
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