Gavin McKenna finished his freshman season at Penn State with 51 points and moved to the front of the Nhl Draft 2026 conversation. He is expected by many to go No. 1, and that would make him the first-ever men's ice hockey player from Penn State to be chosen in the first round of the NHL Draft.
McKenna's Penn State surge
McKenna tied for fifth in the NCAA with 51 points in 35 games, a total built on 15 goals and 36 assists. He was second in the NCAA with 1.46 points per game and finished as a top 10 finalist for the Hobey Baker Award.
That production came after a season in which he set or tied nine school records and won the Big Ten scoring title. For Penn State, the numbers turned his first college season into a draft marker as much as a team stat line.
Joe Mason's influence
McKenna said his grandfather, Joe Mason, remains a major reason he keeps pushing through pressure. “He's a huge influence,” McKenna said, and added, “He's gone through so much in his life. For me, that's my motivation.”
Mason is a 72-year-old survivor of Canada's Indian residential school system. He told McKenna about being left in the mountains as a boy and surviving on his own for three or four days, and McKenna said, “I just can't even imagine what that was like at such a young age,” and, “If I've got something going on in my life that's hard, I know it's nothing compared to what he's gone through.”
Buffalo on June 26-27
The Upper Deck 2026 NHL Draft will be held June 26-27 at KeyBank Center in Buffalo. The first round is set for June 26 at 7 p.m. ET, with rounds 2-7 on June 27 at 11 a.m. ET.
McKenna said he matured through the year at Penn State and that he learned practical habits away from the rink. “I think I've just matured in many ways, on and off the ice,” he said. “I learned how to cook meals and do little things that you’ve got to do as an adult.”
He also said, “That’s why I wanted to go to college, to mature and really learn a lot before I make that next jump,” then added, “I think college did that for me.” The next stage is the draft in Buffalo, where the question is no longer whether he belongs in the conversation but whether the order at the top stays the way many expect it to.
McKenna spent parts of three seasons with Medicine Hat of the Western Hockey League before moving nearly 3,500 miles to Penn State. He said criticism online felt louder on the hardest nights at Penn State University, and that pressure sat beside the production all season.
