Jeff O'Neill

and that obviously worked out i'm curious what what happens with mckenna like he's playing the wing he's playing a different spot like matthews had a lot more on his play because he was playing center so defensively it was a lot more and being deeper in your zone you know i can't imagine opening night he's playing on a line with matthews but what's your let's let's say they take him and he makes the team and he plays for him next year oh you can start what's your jerry's

that by the new year there's chatter that maybe he should get a look with the big guy.

Yeah, that's the question, right?

And again, it's not going to be right away.

It doesn't have to be right away.

If it's not an unbelievable rookie season, we've seen countless examples of that.

The Joe Thorntons, there's a lot of guys who just kind of struggled their first year.

I'm not predicting that, but it wasn't perfect, and eventually they got there.

You're hoping that if you take him, he's a leaf for 10, 12, 15 years and grows into a great player.

But I also think maybe what it becomes, the focus obviously is on Matthews.

Who's going to replace Marner from a couple years ago?

Who's going to put him in a position to get back to chasing Rockets?

I think it could be McKenna in a couple of years, maybe by the end of next year.

But what he could do early in his career is just keep John Tavares afloat and get some cookies for John.

You know, like put him with John.

I could see him living with Tavares.

I don't want to put that on the Tavares family's, you know, plate necessarily right off the bat.

But I think Nyes started, you know, his tenure in Toronto living with Tavares.

And...

Maybe if they can find a second-line center, you move John down, all of a sudden you can have something kind of cooking there in terms of you know exactly what you're getting out of John Tavares and exactly how he's going to play.