F Gavin McKenna - Medicine Hat Tigers, WHL (2026 Draft)

and serious people were calling lafreniere and wright generational? lol c'mon
No, they weren’t. Wright got some extra hype because of the exceptional status. He then had a D-2 roughly on par with McDavid’s. Then covid hit and the rumblings of the possibility continued for obvious reasons. Then the notion of generational went out the window pretty quickly after his draft year started and it became clear that he wasn’t on McDavid’s level as a prospect. By draft time, he wasn’t even seen as a #1 pick, obviously.

Nobody ever thought Lafreniere was anywhere near generational, except maybe when he was like 14-15 the possibility was entertained by some. By the time he was drafted, he was seen as a Stamkos/Hall/Celebrini type of #1 (potential franchise player), and had been for a while.
 
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Maybe this place is a bubble because I don’t really get hockey news via other channels but from a pure pre-draft standpoint I do think Bedard was viewed in that Crosby/McDavid breath even if not their true equal.
 
Maybe this place is a bubble because I don’t really get hockey news via other channels but from a pure pre-draft standpoint I do think Bedard was viewed in that Crosby/McDavid breath even if not their true equal.
Bedard was anointed in the Crosby/McDavid tier by Sportsnet & TSN & a good portion of hockey fans ate it up. His junior production was incredible, the international tournaments were phenomenal, but he stylistically wasn't going to translate as well as Crosby & McDavid, Most normal people who watched a ton of Bedard pre draft thought of him in the Kane/Stamkos/Kovalchuk tier.

Back to McKenna, he's clearly too good for the Dub now. I hope he goes to the NCAA next season, but again, completely understand if he stays in the Dub for cultural/personal comfort reasons.
 
Since folks chose to dump on Bedard earlier in this thread I wanted to bring up the following. He is a young kid, who moved to Chicago as a young kid to play in the best hockey league in the world. The cess pool called social media decided to have some perverted fun at his expense. Give the kid a break, get off his back and let him play hockey. He is and will be a great hockey player.
 
No, they weren’t. Wright got some extra hype because of the exceptional status. He then had a D-2 roughly on par with McDavid’s. Then covid hit and the rumblings of the possibility continued for obvious reasons. Then the notion of generational went out the window pretty quickly after his draft year started and it became clear that he wasn’t on McDavid’s level as a prospect. By draft time, he wasn’t even seen as a #1 pick, obviously.

Nobody ever thought Lafreniere was anywhere near generational, except maybe when he was like 14-15 the possibility was entertained by some. By the time he was drafted, he was seen as a Stamkos/Hall/Celebrini type of #1 (potential franchise player), and had been for a while.

agreed, that's my exact point lol. there are people who hop on tv to speak about basketball that also called markelle fultz the next chris paul or brandon ingram kd-lite, long after it became apparent that they wouldn't live up to their one time prospect hype.

sure, there were (probably) some people leading into their drafts claiming that laf or wright were generational, but cherry picking the most obvious hyperbole on the broader internet as an example of "canadians" overplaying canadian prospects selectively is silly.

time will tell on bedard. it might just be a case of getting something wrong based off of inflated junior stats. don't think there was anything nefarious, just classic "let's hype these kids up we want people to watch this"
 
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