How did Gavin McKenna look in his NHL debut?

Gavin McKenna made his NHL debut with the Toronto Maple Leafs Tuesday night, going minus-two with 15:19 of ice time, including 2:33 on the power play against the Montreal Canadiens.

While the points may not have come, McKenna had flashes of high skill that will define his rookie campaign. The Leafs lost 3-2 and now head to Long Island to face the New York Islanders Wednesday night.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton are joined by Daily Faceoff prospect analyst Steven Ellis to discuss McKenna’s NHL debut and what the future holds for him.

Tyler Yaremchuk: What did you make of McKenna in his first NHL game?

Steven Ellis: It was a learning curve. First off, I know there was a lot of people talking about the rookie lap thing; I think “RandomUser69” on Twitter cares more about it than McKenna did, as he probably cared more about being an NHL player.

Watching him last night, it felt like he was out of position a lot, it felt like he was struggling to keep up with the pace, but that’s to be expected. It’s one thing to have a couple preseason games where he’s playing against the Ottawa Senators’ second-tier guys, but it’s another thing to go up against a team that nearly made it to the Stanley Cup Final.

That’s a lot of pressure, and it turns out that, yeah, the NHL is a hard league to play in. I think it’s something where I’m not too worried about him there. It wasn’t a great performance, and on a few of Montreal’s goals, it looked like he lost his man, but overall, this is a guy who is really smart and skilled and will be a really big part of that Maple Leafs team.

But it’s going to take a bit of time for him to get used to it.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…