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There is a funny thing about being the No. 1 overall pick and coming to Toronto. Everybody knows you're going to be watched. Everybody knows the expectations are going to be enormous. And everybody knows that if you put up some points beside Auston Matthews and William Nylander, people are going to start getting very excited very quickly.

Recently, Scott Wheeler of The Athletic published a ranking of the NHL’s top 20 Calder Trophy candidates for the 2026-27 season. He ranked Gavin McKenna third. In looking at McKenna's situation, the most interesting part might not be how many points he scores. It might be the environment he's walking into.

The obvious comparison is Mitch Marner. Marner arrived in Toronto as a highly talented young player and eventually became one of the faces of an era that never quite delivered what anybody wanted. Every playoff loss added another layer to the story. Every contract negotiation became part of the story. Every quiet game in the playoffs became part of the story. McKenna doesn't carry any of that baggage.

McKenna gets to walk into Toronto without having to explain the past.

That's a pretty significant advantage. The Maple Leafs are also giving him something that most 18-year-olds don't get: an immediate opportunity to play with elite NHL talent. If the plan is really to put him alongside Matthews, Nylander and Tavares and onto the first power-play unit, the young guy is going to have opportunities falling into his lap. Some of his five-foot passes are going to turn into assists simply because McKenna will be surrounded by players who know what to do with the puck.

And that's where the temptation will begin. Toronto fans are going to see the pretty passes. They're going to see the points. They're going to see the power-play production. And before long, somebody will start making comparisons. That's the part I'd try to resist.

McKenna needs to become his own man in the Maple Leafs lineup.

McKenna doesn't need to be the next Mitch Marner. He doesn't need to be the next Auston Matthews, either. He doesn't even need to prove that he's the best player from his draft class in his first season. He needs to learn how to be Gavin McKenna. That's harder than it sounds in Toronto.

The physical question Wheeler raises is legitimate. So is the defensive question. An 18-year-old can have all the offensive talent in the world and still discover that the NHL is a different animal when the schedule gets heavy, and the opposition starts leaning on him every night.

There will be nights when McKenna looks like a superstar. There will probably also be nights when he looks like an 18-year-old. And that's where the Maple Leafs have to be careful.

If the Maple Leafs take a calm approach to McKenna’s development, there’s a chance he’ll do well.

If Toronto really has changed, this is one of the first opportunities to prove it. The organization can't simply celebrate McKenna when he's scoring and then panic when he has a bad game. It can't turn every mistake into a referendum on whether the kid is ready. And it certainly can't make him responsible for fixing everything that went wrong during the Core Four era.

My guess is that McKenna will get his share of cookies. He's too talented, and he's going to have too many good players around him not to. But the bigger story may be whether Toronto can give him something more valuable than cookies. Time.

Let the kid grow. Let him make mistakes. Let him figure out the NHL. Let him become a player instead of immediately turning him into a symbol. Because Toronto has spent a long time looking for the next great Maple Leaf. Maybe the real challenge this time is letting one become great without making him carry everything that came before him.