Gavin McKenna rebounds from Leafs benching with 17:56

Thursday night against the Sabres, the 18-year-old No. 1 overall pick stopped getting shifts halfway through the 2nd period, and nobody in the building could say why.

David Pagnotta

@TheFourthPeriod

McKenna played just 6:36 in tonight's game. His last shift came halfway through the 2nd period. Barring an injury (he remained on the bench), postgame explanation should be interesting.

He wasn't hurt. He stayed on the bench and watched Toronto lose 5-4 in overtime, and he finished with 1 shot and a minus-1. It also didn't look like he was being punished for bad play. McKenna had points in 4 straight games coming in, with 2 goals and 3 assists, and he'd played 17:08 in the game before against Utah. A rookie on a heater went from that to watching the whole 3rd period.

Then came Hiller's explanation, and it made things worse. His story: 2 late penalties in the 2nd period threw off his forward rotation, the intermission came, and by then McKenna had sat for so long that putting him back out cold felt unfair. They talked about getting him out in the 3rd. It just never happened.

Credit to him for saying "that's on me," but the hockey internet wasn't buying it. 30-some minutes on the bench is exactly why you get the kid a shift, not a reason to keep him there. By Friday morning, the national guys were openly saying they were baffled, and Daily Faceoff was running pieces asking whether the Leafs were too messy, on the ice and behind the bench, to make the playoffs.

That's the real issue. Hiller is the guy deciding how the most hyped prospect this franchise has had in years gets brought along, and a mystery benching 8 games into his career is how a quiet October turns into a running storyline. When the injury bug hit, it got even harder to keep McKenna stapled to the bench: John Tavares went week-to-week with a lower-body injury, and McKenna moved onto the top power-play unit.

McKenna, for his part, handled it like a veteran. After talking with Hiller, he said the coach told him the benching had nothing to do with how he was playing, and he didn't take the bait on a single follow-up.

"I trust him, I trust the team" is the answer every PR staff dreams of. He said he'd never been benched like that before, called it a good talk, and moved on. Auston Matthews basically said the same thing for him, figuring the kid would come out angry the next time.

He came out with minutes, anyway. Saturday against the Islanders, McKenna was out there all night, and the extra power-play time showed. He finished at 17:56, the most ice time of his 8 NHL games, and his 4 shots tied his career high. The Leafs still lost, and they were getting outplayed for most of it, but this time McKenna was out there for it.

Mark Masters

@markhmasters

Gavin McKenna played career high 17:56 tonight & matched career high with four shots Jim Hiller: "He was good. He was he was skating ... But, like everybody else, had a hard time getting too much done" @TSN_Sports

"He was skating" isn't high praise, and "like everybody else" is Hiller putting McKenna back in with the rest of a group that struggled. But the minutes say more than the quote does. When the Leafs struggle, the coach's choices get looked at, and the next one to watch is whether McKenna keeps that power-play spot and those 17-plus minutes once Tavares is back. One more unexplained benching and nobody will be asking about the kid anymore. They'll be asking about Hiller.