Jack McBain is hard to miss.
The Arizona Coyotes sophomore stands 6’3″ and weighs in at over 200 pounds. Good luck knocking him over in stride or pushing him off-balance in a scrum. Not happening.
When McBain first entered the National Hockey League with the Coyotes as a recent trade acquisition from the Minnesota Wild at the end of the 2021–22 season, he looked like a player who might be defined by his physical presence. And, to a certain extent, he still is.
But halfway through his second full year in Arizona, McBain is also showing signs of becoming much more. The 24-year-old center has spent the last handful of games between Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz on the Coyotes’ top line and hasn’t looked one bit out of place.
“They’re both unreal players. It’s a good opportunity,” McBain said before Tuesday’s game against the Calgary Flames. “It’s not really my decision what happens but I just try to go provide what I can and kind of bring something else to that line.”
Keller and Schmaltz are two pure finesse players who have ranked among the Coyotes’ scoring leaders for the last half-dozen years. By contrast, McBain is pretty new blood, having joined the organization in March 2022.
The Coyotes acquired McBain from the Wild shortly after the end of his senior year at Boston College, during which he scored 19 goals in just 24 games. The Toronto product had previously indicated he wouldn’t sign with Minnesota.
All it took to pry McBain away from the Wild was a 2022 second-round pick. McBain quickly signed an entry-level contract with the Coyotes and has racked up 20 goals and 41 points in 118 games since while largely playing in a bottom-six role.
McBain was also the Coyotes’ runaway leader in hits last season with 304 — a full 101 more than Liam O’Brien in second place — and ranked fourth overall in the league in that category.
This year, McBain is down from 15.90 hits/60 to 10.28. That’s well below O’Brien and closer in line with some of the league’s more skilled power forwards, including Tom Wilson (9.25) and Evander Kane (10.84). Conversely, McBain’s scoring pace is up from last season: he has 12 points in 26 games after collecting 26 in 82 in 2022–23.
“Last year was my first full year and I was just kind of looking to come in and make the team,” McBain said. “I kind of found my role just through being physical. I just tried to do whatever I could to play every night.
“That’s kind of how I started and it’s still how I want to play,” McBain added. “I still want to be a physical presence. But I’m trying to grow my full game and provide offense while I can.”
The Coyotes’ center depth has been tested this season with top-line pivot Barrett Hayton going down with an upper-body injury back in November. Alex Kerfoot, Logan Cooley, and McBain have all spent extended stretches of time playing between Arizona’s two big guns; Hayton is expected back at the start of February.
McBain, who bears a strong resemblance to Coyotes GM Bill Armstrong, has been expected to play a bit above his pay grade of late. (It’s worth noting that Armstrong signed McBain in July to a two-year extension worth exactly $1,599,999.99 per season — don’t ask why).
In any case, McBain is doing a pretty good job of stating his case for a raise on his next deal. Even with his struggles this year, Cooley projects to be the Coyotes’ future No. 1 down the middle, but the hierarchy gets a little muddy after that. Having only turned 24 earlier this month, McBain is young enough that he could still turn into a quality middle-six center.
“For me, he brings urgency and intensity,” Coyotes head coach André Tourigny said Tuesday. “He’s a really good skater, he can make plays, he’s tough, he’s mean. But what he does every day, it’s his urgency and his intensity. There’s no pause in his game. There’s no halfway. It’s always balls-out.”
McBain is similar in many ways to fellow Coyotes pivot Nick Bjugstad, who has enjoyed a career renaissance since first signing with Arizona ahead of the 2022–23 season. The 31-year-old Bjugstad has nine goals and 26 points in 41 games with this year’s Coyotes while primarily playing between Matias Maccelli and Lawson Crouse.
Bjugstad is three inches taller and slightly less physical a player than McBain, but he’s been around the block and has experienced how difficult it can be for even the most physically capable centers to lock down roles in the NHL. The 300-point and 700-game milestones are both on the horizon for Bjugstad, whose career could ultimately serve as something of a blueprint for McBain.
“He’s had an unreal career and he’s still doing amazing,” McBain said of Bjugstad, who netted a hat trick against his hometown Minnesota Wild on Saturday. “He’s such a great guy off the ice, too, and he’s a really good role model for the younger guys on the team as someone you want to be, on and off the ice. He’s a big two-way centerman and someone I can hopefully follow.”
McBain and the Coyotes will return to action and continue their playoff push on Tuesday evening at 7:00 p.m. MT when they take on the Calgary Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
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