McKenna Eyes Leafs Roster Spot as Training Camp Nears

The Spotlight Arrives Before Camp Does

When NHL training camps open across the league between September 10 and 13, few players will attract more attention than Gavin McKenna. The 18-year-old forward, selected first overall by the Toronto Maple Leafs at the 2026 NHL Draft, arrives having spent much of his summer in California training alongside San Jose Sharks centre Macklin Celebrini. The sessions, McKenna has noted, taught him a great deal about the demands of NHL-level play — lessons he intends to carry directly into what will be his first genuine shot at a professional roster spot.

Veteran defenceman Morgan Rielly spoke this week about the changing complexion of the Leafs' roster, saying he anticipates a significant presence from McKenna at camp and expects major change throughout the lineup. The endorsement carries weight: Rielly, one of Toronto's longest-serving core players, is not given to empty praise. His words signal that the organization views McKenna not as a long-term project to be developed patiently in the minors, but as a genuine candidate for an immediate NHL role in a rebuilt team.

Numbers, Line Combinations and a New Goalie

McKenna signed a three-year entry-level contract with Toronto and will wear No. 92, having surrendered his junior number 72 to newly signed goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. The veteran netminder — a two-time Stanley Cup champion — joined Toronto on a three-year deal starting July 1. Bobrovsky posted a .877 save percentage and a 3.07 goals-against average last season, numbers that raised eyebrows across the league. But his experience and pedigree made him Toronto's choice to anchor a franchise still chasing its first championship in over half a century.

The central on-ice question entering camp is where McKenna fits alongside Auston Matthews, John Tavares and the rest of Toronto's established forwards. Most projections place him on the wing, potentially on the first line beside Matthews. Head coach Jim Hiller will have barely two exhibition games to evaluate that fit before roster decisions must be made — an unusually compressed window given the stakes involved for both the player and the franchise.

A New-Look Roster for a Longer Season

Toronto's overhaul extended beyond McKenna and Bobrovsky. The Leafs traded defenceman Brandon Carlo to St. Louis and goaltender Joseph Woll to Philadelphia, reshaping both ends of the roster in pursuit of deeper playoff runs. McKenna arrives having trained at the highest available level all summer, but training alongside established pros is different from competing against them in a camp where every shift is evaluated.

If McKenna wins a roster spot, his debut season will be played under the NHL's new 84-game schedule — the most games in a regular season in more than three decades. The expanded format places a premium on depth and conditioning across all 32 rosters, and a teenager carrying genuine line-one expectations will face physical and mental demands unlike anything in his junior career.

Toronto's first preseason game is scheduled for September 19 against the Montreal Canadiens. That game, and the one or two that follow, will be the earliest meaningful evidence of whether McKenna is ready to stay — and whether Bobrovsky's long career still has a reliable chapter left in it at hockey's most scrutinised address.