Gavin McKenna has not played an NHL game yet, so there are no Gavin McKenna stats to look up. What there is instead is eleven years of evidence about what first overall picks actually do in year one, and it sets a more useful expectation than the hype does.
We pulled every No. 1 pick from 2015 to 2025 and their rookie season. The range is wider than you would think, and where McKenna fits in it depends on one detail most previews skip.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Drafted | First overall, 2026 |
| Team | Toronto Maple Leafs |
| Position | Left wing |
| From | Penn State, Big Ten |
| Contract | Three-year entry-level deal, signed 3 July 2026 |
| Cap hit | $1.075 million |
Why there are no Gavin McKenna stats yet
McKenna went first overall in June and signed on 3 July. He came out of Penn State rather than junior, which is worth noting on its own.
For most of the last decade the No. 1 pick came from the OHL, WHL or QMJHL. That changed recently. Macklin Celebrini came from Boston University in 2024 and Owen Power from Michigan in 2021. McKenna is the third from the college route in six years, and the NCAA group has the better rookie record of the two.
Anyone searching Gavin McKenna stats today is asking a forecasting question, not a lookup one. Here is the data that answers it.
What every No. 1 pick since 2015 did as a rookie
| Draft | Player | Team | Pos | Rookie season | GP | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Connor McDavid | Edmonton | C | 2015-26 | 45 | 48 |
| 2016 | Auston Matthews | Toronto | C | 2016-17 | 82 | 69 |
| 2017 | Nico Hischier | New Jersey | C | 2017-18 | 82 | 52 |
| 2018 | Rasmus Dahlin | Buffalo | D | 2018-19 | 82 | 44 |
| 2019 | Jack Hughes | New Jersey | C | 2019-20 | 61 | 21 |
| 2020 | Alexis Lafrenière | NY Rangers | LW | 2020-21 | 56 | 21 |
| 2021 | Owen Power | Buffalo | D | 2022-23 | 79 | 35 |
| 2022 | Juraj Slafkovský | Montréal | LW | 2022-23 | 39 | 10 |
| 2023 | Connor Bedard | Chicago | C | 2023-24 | 68 | 61 |
| 2024 | Macklin Celebrini | San Jose | C | 2024-25 | 70 | 63 |
| 2025 | Matthew Schaefer | NY Islanders | D | 2025-26 | 82 | 59 |
Owen Power played eight games in 2021-22 after leaving Michigan, so his first full season is listed instead. The median across the eleven is 48 points. The average is 44.
The detail that matters: McKenna is a winger
Split that table by position and it stops looking like a range and starts looking like a pattern.
| Position | No. 1 picks since 2015 | Average rookie points |
|---|---|---|
| Centre | McDavid, Matthews, Hischier, Hughes, Bedard, Celebrini | 52 |
| Defence | Dahlin, Power, Schaefer | 46 |
| Left wing | Lafrenière, Slafkovský | 16 |
The only two wingers taken first overall in this span scored 21 and 10 points as rookies. Both are now good NHL players. Slafkovský put up 73 points last season and Lafrenière 57. Neither looked like it in year one.
There is a reasonable explanation. A first-line centre gets handed minutes and a power play, because the position is scarce. A winger has to earn his way up. And McKenna arrives on a Toronto team that already has Matthews, Nylander and Tavares, and that added Kirill Marchenko in the Matthew Knies trade the day before the season opened.
The two cases worth knowing
The patient case: Jack Hughes. Twenty-one points in 61 games as a rookie, which at the time looked like a bust. Three seasons later he scored 99. He has not finished below 70 since.
The immediate case: Auston Matthews. Forty goals and 69 points in his first season, still the benchmark, and he did it for the same club McKenna just joined. That is the number Toronto fans will have in mind, and only one player in eleven years has matched it.
Macklin Celebrini is the most useful comparison. Same NCAA route, out of Boston University. He scored 63 as a rookie, then 115 last season. Two of the last three No. 1 picks came from college rather than junior, and both cleared 59 immediately.
What Toronto actually needs from him
Not 60 points. The Maple Leafs finished 28th with a goal difference of minus 46 and spent the summer fixing the other end of the ice, signing Sergei Bobrovsky for three years and trading Joseph Woll to Philadelphia.
McKenna is the third or fourth forward on this roster by usage, behind Matthews, Nylander and Tavares. On a team with that much established scoring, a rookie winger playing 14 to 16 minutes a night is doing his job at 40 points. The Gavin McKenna stats worth watching in year one are ice time and power-play share, not the raw total.
So what should we expect from Gavin McKenna?
Somewhere between 35 and 55 points. The gap is wide on purpose.
The case for the top of it: he is the most hyped prospect since Bedard, he went the NCAA route that produced Celebrini’s 63, and Toronto’s top six creates chances. The case for the bottom: he is a winger, and the two wingers before him managed 21 and 10.
Anything above 50 puts him in the top half of this group. Anything above 63 and the Calder is his. Prices are on our NHL awards odds page, and the Gavin McKenna stats themselves will land on our NHL scoring leaders page once games are played.
One number to keep in view. Toronto finished 28th last season with a goal difference of minus 46, and rookie scoring is a team-context statistic as much as an individual one. Connor Bedard put up 61 points on a Chicago team that was minus 44, and he did it while finishing at minus 44 himself, which tells you how little the raw total says about whether a season went well.
He has not played an NHL regular-season game yet, so he has no NHL stats. He was drafted first overall in 2026 out of Penn State and signed a three-year entry-level contract with Toronto on 3 July 2026 at a $1.075 million cap hit.
The median for the eleven No. 1 picks from 2015 to 2025 is 48 points and the average is 44. The range runs from 10, by Juraj Slafkovsky, to 69, by Auston Matthews.
The Toronto Maple Leafs. He was the first overall pick of the 2026 draft and signed a three-year entry-level deal in July.
He is the favourite. On the evidence of the last eleven years he would need around 60 points to be a clear winner, a mark only three No. 1 picks since 2015 have reached as rookies.
A left wing. That matters: the only two wingers taken first overall since 2015, Alexis Lafreniere and Juraj Slafkovsky, scored 21 and 10 points in their rookie seasons, well below the centres and defencemen in the same group.
We will update this with real Gavin McKenna stats as the season goes, and hold our own forecast up against them. The first sample arrives Tuesday against Montréal.
19+ (18+ in AB, MB and QC). Odds are approximate at the time of writing and change constantly. Please play responsibly. ConnexOntario: 1-866-531-2600 for Ontario residents; see your province’s helpline for resources elsewhere.