The Toronto Maple Leafs are looking at the early stages of putting together the power play. Head coach Jim Hiller explains why Gavin McKenna isn't getting the reins to the top unit just yet.
As the Toronto Maple Leafs gear up for their first NHL exhibition game against the Montreal Canadiens at Scotiabank Arena, the team got some reps with their power-play formation for the first time at morning skate.
With plenty of eyeballs on Gavin McKenna, the 18-year-old was skating with the second projected power-play unit for the most part.
He was on the left flank, with Emil Andrae at the point, Matthew Knies in the bumper, Bo Groulx on the right flank, and Tinus Luc Koblar as the net-front presence.
Maple Leafs head coach Jim Hiller explained his reasoning for positioning McKenna on the second unit.
"I just think, you know, probably for him and us, just get out there and play," he said after morning skate at Scotiabank Arena. "We don't want to put extra pressure on. If you asked him, he'd probably say, 'I want to play 22 minutes, I want to run the first power play.' And that's exactly what he should say. But for us, we just want to get him started in the NHL, see what it feels like."
While Toronto will slowly get an assessment of what McKenna looks like in the NHL, he got some opportunity with the big guns on Saturday morning.
McKenna earned a couple of reps with the Leafs' top unit. He, as well as Knies, swapped with John Tavares and Jack Roslovic, joining William Nylander, Auston Matthews and Darren Raddysh.
"There'll be a chance over time, whether that's one game, two, 10, 20, where his role will increase in different areas," Hiller said. "But yeah, we just have a lot of good players. So fortunately, he doesn't have to start there."
Knies remained in the bumper position, but McKenna was hanging around the net. He wasn't always positioned directly in front of the goaltender, but he received pucks beside and behind the net, exercising his playmaking ability.
"I'm just looking forward to seeing him play his first NHL exhibition game, and then we'll see what that looked like," the Leafs coach added. "He's looked great in practice, but let's just see what it looks like for everybody. And we might say, 'hey, he has less deficiencies than we even thought.' He adjusted right to this. And then the plan can change from there.
"Again, the second point is we have a lot of really good players on the team. A lot of offensive players that have played important roles, have had great careers. So anytime you do one thing, you adjust something else. You just have to take all that into account."
In other circumstances, on the second unit on the left half-boards, McKenna and the rest of the group moved around the zone a lot. Rather than stationary puck movement, the players on the second unit cycled through their positions, which allowed McKenna to see the entire zone with or without the puck.
He often looked for cross-seam passes and made quick touches on the puck. His combination of smooth stickhandling, vision, and confidence should, in itself, make him a considerable threat to the opposition, even without a single professional hockey game under his belt.
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