‘Holy f—, he’s good’: Gavin McKenna is chasing history at U-18 World Championship

Steven Ellis
Steven Ellis
Gavin McKenna (Steven Ellis/Daily Faceoff)
Credit: Gavin McKenna (Steven Ellis/Daily Faceoff)

HELSINKI, Fin. – We’ve seen plenty of greatness at the U-18 World Championship in recent years.

The 2021 tournament was especially remarkable. Shane Wright scored 14 points in five games as a 16-year-old. Matvei Michkov’s 16-point performance put him in third place all-time, two behind the all-time record split between Alex Ovechkin and Mikhail Grigorenko. That same year, Connor Bedard introduced himself to the hockey world by tying Connor McDavid’s output by a 15-year-old with 14 points.

Last year, Macklin Celebrini had 15 points while playing with an injured shoulder. He carried that team on his back, and was the biggest reason why Canada took home bronze in an otherwise troubled run for the nation.

Now, top 2026 NHL Draft prospect Gavin McKenna is trying to make history with a special run of his own.

Through three games against three solid teams in Group B, McKenna is up to four goals and eight points with a 2.67 points-per-game average. He had a pair of goals against Sweden to help Canada win an important one, and then registered consecutive three-point outings in huge wins against Czechia and Switzerland.

As a late 2007 birthday, McKenna missed out on getting a chance to showcase his talent at the event at 15 like McDavid and Bedard, both of whom earned exceptional status. But at 16, he’s on pace to crush efforts from NHL stars Jack Hughes, Steven Stamkos, Evgeni Malkin, Clayton Keller, Taylor Hall and Andrei Svechnikov, among others.

It’s a strong Canadian team with excellent depth, and McKenna himself has some solid linemates in Porter Martone and new addition Caleb Desnoyers. But let’s be clear: like Celebrini last year, McKenna is playing in a league of his own right now.

“It’s a treat to watch when you get a front-row seat like that,” Canadian coach Gardiner MacDougall said with a laugh. He’s exceptional. He’s calm with the puck and makes big plays. He’s one of those elite players that you think has an eye on the back of his head.”

If you’ve followed McKenna’s career, none of this is surprising. Connor Bedard’s 100-point season in 2021-22 is the gold standard among 16-year-olds in the modern-day CHL, but McKenna had 97 points in just one fewer game with the Medicine Hat Tigers. McKenna had 18 points in 16 games as a 15-year-old the previous year, with his 1.13 PPG putting him third in WHL history among players with at least 15 games played.

Along with Sweden’s Viggo Björck, who recently had a great showing with Sweden’s U-17 team earlier this month, McKenna is considered one of the top prospects – if not THE top prospect – for the 2026 selection process. He looks like he’ll be the fourth Whitehorse, Yukon native to play in the NHL, and if he lives up to expectations, he’ll be the highest drafted from the territory, surpassing Dylan Cozens (seventh overall in 2019).

McKenna still has two more WHL seasons before that happens, so it’s not in the back of his mind. Gold in Finland is.

“I grew up watching (Wright, Bedard, Celebrini), it’s cool trying to follow in their footsteps,” McKenna said, who is distantly related to Bedard through marriage. “They set a pretty high standard and I’m gonna do my best to match that.”

McKenna made the highlight reel on Sunday with an end-to-end goal, using his speed and quick hands to beat multiple Swiss players before jamming it home. Later in the game, he made another great move to generate a high-danger, in-close scoring chance, with Martone tapping in the airborne rebound.

“Gav can take control of a game,” Martone said. “Whenever he has the puck, you don’t know what he’s gonna do, but you know he’s gonna make a good play. Playing with him has been unreal.”

The media sits with the scouts at the U-18s, so it’s easy to pick up on what they have to say. They’re mostly there to witness the top 2024 prospects, with Canada having Tij Iginla, Jett Luchanko, and Charlie Elick, among others. But McKenna has caught their attention early on as Canada’s best player.

“Holy f—, he’s good,” one scout told Daily Faceoff.

Like most young top prospects, McKenna is well-spoken. He knows he’s got the talent to be a game-breaking forward, but he isn’t willing to settle with his skillset and can be his own biggest critic in trying to improve. McDavid and Bedard were like that at the same age. For example, McKenna said he worked on skating heavily this year, which was evident in how he scored his goal against Switzerland.

“Right after Christmas this year is when I started to work on my speed a little more,” McKenna said. “I didn’t have my best first half of the year, and then started to take control and start working on my conditioning, bag skating myself after practice. It brings confidence and then I saw improvements in my skating. It’s something I’ll keep doing for the rest of my life.”

That commitment to always getting better hasn’t been lost on scouts.

“You see what he did this year at 16, something only Bedard has done in recent years, that’s special,” a scout said. “What’s he going to do at 17? 18? We’re talking massive numbers.”

It won’t hurt having 2024 NHL Draft prospects Cayden Lindstrom and Andrew Basha hanging around for another 1-2 years, either. But McKenna is the real draw. While it’s not uncommon to overhype top prospects a little bit, McKenna, a 6-foot centerman, is the next in a long line of high-end, superstar prospects at a time when that’s starting to become more common at the top of the draft ladder. It’s legitimately exciting for high-end hockey prospects as the quality continues improving.

McKenna’s next challenge will be Kazakhstan in an essentially meaningless game on Tuesday. Both teams will just want to stay healthy, with the Kazakhs primed to fight in the relegation round. Canada will then face the bottom seed from Group A, which will be either Slovakia, Latvia or Norway. There’s plenty of opportunities in those two games alone for McKenna to creep closer to history, although he’ll be the first to tell you he’s not focused on that.

Get used to the name Gavin McKenna. He’ll likely play at the 2025 World Junior Championship in Ottawa as Canada looks to return to the top spot on home ice. It’ll be a chance for the team to parade their next budding superstar like they did with Bedard in Edmonton and Halifax a few years back. And then he’ll do it again the following year, and maybe he’ll go toe-to-toe with Bedard’s numbers like he has in the WHL.

The U-18 World Championship is just the beginning of true greatness.

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