There were claims that he was a much more productive player on the power play than at even strength, but the numbers tell a different story: McKenna had 27 points (nine goals, 18 assists) at even strength, including one 3-on-3 goal and zero points at 4-on-4. The 18-year-old had 21 points (five goals, 16 assists) on the power play.<\/p>\n
He saw the ice differently and every shift felt dangerous. Still, choosing a favorite isn’t easy.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know who’s better,” said Craig Button,\u00a0TSN resident director of scouting and a former NHL general manager. “I’m being very straightforward. They’re both really good within their profiles as offensive wingers. I think Stenberg leans a little bit more shooter, and Gavin leans a little bit more playmaker. But they drive play from the wing as offensive catalysts. They’re smart and while I’d like to say, \u2018This guy’s definitely going to be better,\u2019 I cannot put that stake in the ground.<\/p>\n
“My point is there is very little, if anything, that separates these two guys. I think they both made significant progress over the course of the year.\u00a0Gavin, after the first half, going to Penn State, I thought he really matured over the second half in understanding his game. That was a hard adjustment for him. Stenberg going to the SHL where he’s trying to fit in. After the World Junior Championship, both these kids were really good for their respective teams. I mean, we saw what Ivar did in the World Championship. The thing is there’s no Macklin Celebrini<\/a> or Connor Bedard<\/a> in this draft. … It’s not like that this year.”<\/p>\n So, who’s your pick?<\/p>\n “I will say on the record that based on my knowledge of McKenna, and I’m not discounting anybody else, if you’re going to pass him up in the draft, you better be really sure,” warned NHL Central Scouting senior western scout John Williams.<\/p>\n In a poll\u00a0NHL.com conducted of 10 NHL scouts who were asked which player they would choose if given the option, McKenna earned a 7-3 advantage.<\/p>\n NHL.com sought the opinion of NHL evaluators who have watched McKenna and Stenberg this season. They promised honesty in exchange for anonymity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were claims that he was a much more productive player on the power play than at even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-742265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}