Which NHL teams deserve Gavin McKenna the most — and the least?

Less than a month into his draft year, Gavin McKenna is already one of the most exciting and talked-about NHL prospects in a long, long time.

Born up in Yukon back in 2007, McKenna was granted exceptional status by Hockey Alberta and BC Hockey in his youth and exploded onto the scene with the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers back in the 2022-23 season, eventually scoring 50 goals and 167 points in 72 games split between the regular season and playoffs as a 16-year-old in 2024-25. He’s a force to be reckoned with, and nobody expects him to be picked anywhere other than first overall in the 2026 NHL Draft.

But which teams need McKenna the most? And more importantly, which teams deserve him the most? While it still remains to be seen exactly which teams will finish at the top and bottom of the league standings in 2025-26, we can still deduce a fair amount based on early performances and last year’s results. The Edmonton Oilers certainly don’t deserve McKenna after all the high picks they made in the 2010s, but after reaching the Stanley Cup Final in back-to-back seasons, we don’t need to talk about them here.

So, looking at the teams that we expect to finish near the bottom of the league this season, here’s your guide to the three that deserve Whitehorse’s favorite son the most — and the least. We’ll start with the latter and go from there.

Deserve the least

3. Pittsburgh Penguins

The Penguins are in a position where they could badly use a prospect of McKenna’s caliber. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang are all in their late 30s, their existing prospect pool leaves quite a lot to be desired, and (most importantly) they aren’t particularly good, coming off a season in which they went 34-36-12 for just 80 points.

But we’ve already mentioned in passing the reason why the Penguins shouldn’t be handed one of the best prospects in a generation: They’ve already been in this exact scenario 20 years ago. With Mario Lemieux, universally regarded as one of the greatest players in league history, on the verge of entering his second and final retirement, the Penguins won one of the most consequential NHL Draft lotteries in history and were able to pick Crosby first overall in 2005 — and that was after they’d already drafted Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury.

History has a habit of repeating itself, but c’mon now. The Penguins have had an all-time great in their lineup for more than four decades straight. Their luck at the draft gives the Oilers a run for their money, which says a lot. The Penguins will likely draft high again this year, but if they get McKenna, prepare to hear a lot of people saying, “Not again!”

2. Chicago Blackhawks

We’re only two years removed from the Blackhawks winning the Connor Bedard lottery. Since then, they’ve drafted Artyom Levshunov at No. 2 overall and Anton Frondell at No. 3. This is a team that has already enjoyed a ton of fair fortune at the draft, and while Bedard certainly could use more help, it’d be somewhat aggravating to see them pick first for the second time in four years.

Even without getting deep into all the off-ice drama that surrounded the Blackhawks in the early part of the decade, which was extremely disconcerting to say the least, this is just not a team that is due for another high draft pick. This Blackhawks team is less than two decades removed from picking Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane in successive drafts, which led to them winning the Stanley Cup in 2010, 2013 and 2015. And then they got Bedard.

As much as the league would probably love to see McKenna in an Original Six city playing for a team with a lot of history, it just wouldn’t do to see him in Chicago. With Bedard and Frank Nazar already doing a lot of the heavy lifting up front, the Hawks can certainly make do with one of the other top prospects in this year’s draft.

1. San Jose Sharks

Just … no.

Not only did the Sharks just pick Macklin Celebrini first overall in 2024, but they’ve already assembled one of the deepest groups of elite young talent in recent NHL history. Up front: Celebrini, Michael Misa, William Eklund, Will Smith, Quentin Musty, and Igor Chernyshov. On defense: Sam Dickinson, Shakir Mukhamadullin and Luca Cagnoni. And between the pipes: Yaroslav Askarov and Joshua Ravensbergen.

To quote our very own Steven Ellis, who ranked the Sharks’ prospect pool as the very best in the entire league back in August: “The Sharks are still not done churning out high-quality prospects. They’ve got a bit of everything. High-end scorers? Check. An elite defensive prospect? You bet. Not one, but two outstanding goalies? Yes sir! The Sharks have one of the most exciting futures in all of hockey, and we haven’t even seen what the pool is capable of.”

The Sharks may very well end up being in the McKenna sweepstakes this coming spring, but there isn’t a single team in the league that stands to gain less from potentially drafting him. Sure, he’d probably be great in San Jose, but they have so many talented young players as it stands. When you already have an embarrassment of riches, what’s another dollar? Let another team have a crack at picking first overall.

Deserve the most

3. Columbus Blue Jackets

The Blue Jackets have always been easy to root for, but those sentiments reached a new level last season after the tragic death of Johnny Gaudreau. The Blue Jackets played their hearts out to commemorate their old star and finished just outside the playoff picture, racking up 89 points — just two back of the postseason-bound Montreal Canadiens and New Jersey Devils.

No doubt about it: Columbus would embrace McKenna as one of their own, and he’s already playing somewhat close by at Penn State. Their existing roster is decent, but it could really use another big-time scorer, and McKenna is only a few months removed from finishing up a 129-point WHL season with Medicine Hat. He’d instantly be the best Blue Jackets prospect since Rick Nash, whom they selected first overall back in 2002.

Nash remains the only No. 1 pick in Blue Jackets history. They’ve made two other top-three selections: Pierre-Luc Dubois in 2016, and Adam Fantilli just two years ago. But as it stands, the Blue Jackets’ top offensive player is a late second-rounder from 2018 in Kirill Marchenko, and the centers they’ve drafted recently — Fantilli, Cayden Lindstrom, and Kent Johnson — are still defined more by their potential than their production. Adding a guy like McKenna into the mix would work wonders toward unlocking this Blue Jackets team as a future force in the East.

2. Nashville Predators

As an incoming expansion franchise in 1998, the Predators traded up one spot to select David Legwand with the No. 2 pick. Legwand was a very capable second-line forward in Nashville for 15 years, but he only exceeded 50 points twice in his entire career, albeit he played in a lower-scoring era. And wouldn’t you know it: Legwand remains the only top-three draft pick in Predators history.

Under the watchful eye of Hockey Hall of Fame executive David Poile, the Predators were consistently competitive and made the playoffs more often than not. But since former Preds head coach Barry Trotz took over as GM in 2023, things have been a little more uncertain. After a catastrophic 2024-25 season, Nashville made its first top-10 pick in over a decade at the 2025 draft, selecting rugged center Brady Martin at No. 5. But they need more.

Nashville’s current prospect pool is a bit of a mixed bag, with Martin the top dog among the likes of Tanner Molendyk, Yegor Surin and Matthew Wood. There are a lot of guys in there who project as future middle-six forwards and second-pair defenders. What the Preds really need is someone like McKenna who can slot in next to Martin on their top line of the future, and with only three top-five picks in their history (Seth Jones was the other), Nashville would be a nice landing spot for the Whitehorse product. It just remains to be seen whether they’ll actually be bad enough to stay in the lottery.

1. Calgary Flames

Since relocating from Atlanta in 1980, the Flames have not made a single top-three draft pick. Aside from the Vegas Golden Knights and the Utah Mammoth, two of the NHL’s three newest clubs, they’re the only team in the entire league that has never picked that high. In addition, they’ve never won the draft lottery (Utah has), and they’ve certainly never drafted a “generational” prospect.

The highest draft pick in Calgary Flames history remains Sam Bennett, whom they selected at No. 4 overall back in 2014. He’s also their only top-five draft pick ever, as well as one of only four top-10 draft picks they’ve had in the last 20 years; Sean Monahan, Matthew Tkachuk, and Zayne Parekh are the others.

The Flames have been mired in mediocrity for decades, with their miracle run to the 2004 Stanley Cup Final serving as one of a select few exceptions to that trend, and they haven’t yet recovered from the mass exodus of top talent from their organization in 2022. But with a new building to replace the aging Saddledome on its way, as well as future cornerstones in goal (Dustin Wolf) and on defense (Parekh) already in place, a true blue-chip piece up front might be all the Flames need to turn this ship around.

No team is more overdue for a franchise-level prospect, and with the Flames off to a miserable 1-4-0 start, it might finally be their time to get one.