McKenna, Martone, Stenberg: how the NHL's top rookies opened the season

Toronto was down 3-0 to Nashville on Tuesday night, and the No. 1 pick in the draft still had nothing on the scoresheet.

Gavin McKenna had played three NHL games. He had one shot on goal in each of them. Then, early in the second period, he passed to John Tavares, who carried it through the neutral zone and beat Juuse Saros to get the Leafs on the board. Later in the period, 61 seconds after Steven Stamkos had pushed the lead back to two, McKenna took a feed from Auston Matthews and beat Saros' blocker with a wrist shot. Matthews won it with 14 seconds left in overtime, 5-4.

One week into the season, that night is the brightest moment for this rookie class so far. But the three names in the headline of NHL.com's rookies-to-watch preview have opened in three different places. One just broke through. One has gone quiet after a loud spring. One is still learning the size of the rink.

McKenna: the slow first week, then the breakthrough

The pressure on McKenna was built in. Toronto took him No. 1 in the 2026 draft after missing the playoffs for the first time since 2016, and he was one of several new faces in the lineup on opening night. NHL.com put him at the front of its rookies-to-watch list, coming off 51 points in 35 games as a Penn State freshman.

His debut on Sept. 29 was a 3-2 loss to Montreal. He played 15:19, starting on a line with Tavares and William Nylander, got one shot on net and finished minus-2. "Not my best," he told reporters afterward. The next two games looked similar: one shot each, no points, ice time between 12:46 and 15:32.

Tuesday flipped it. McKenna had a goal, an assist and four shots on goal against Nashville, more shots than his first three games combined. Coach Jim Hiller called the goal "a goal-scorer's goal," which matters because McKenna is known as a passer first. According to NHL.com, he became the youngest Maple Leaf to record a first point (18 years, 290 days) since Drake Berehowsky in 1990.

Toronto is 2-2-0, and all four games have been decided by one goal. The Leafs open a road trip Thursday at Vegas, 10:00 PM ET.

Martone: from a historic spring to a quiet October

If there was a rookie built to hit the ground running, it was Porter Martone. NHL.com called him likely the rookie most poised to excel this season, and the spring backed that up. After leaving Michigan State in late March, he put up 10 points in nine regular-season games for Philadelphia, helping the Flyers into the playoffs for the first time since 2020. Then he became the first teenager in NHL history to score the game-winning goal in each of his first two playoff games. Coach Rick Tocchet played him 17:02 a night down the stretch.

The first week of this season has been the opposite. Martone has no points and two shots on goal in four games. His ice time has ranged from 11:02 to 14:36, a step down from where he finished last spring. The team around him has struggled too: Philadelphia is 0-2-2, opened with a 7-0 home loss to Pittsburgh and has scored five goals in four games.

None of that erases what he showed in April. Four games is a tiny sample, and two of those losses came in overtime. But for a player who led the Flyers with nine shots on goal through his first three playoff games, two shots in a week is the number that stands out. The Flyers visit Ottawa on Thursday at 7:00 PM ET.

Stenberg: a first point, and a lot of learning

Ivar Stenberg, the No. 2 pick, came to San Jose from Frolunda in Sweden, where he had 33 points in 43 games. He turned 19 on Sept. 30, the day after the season opened. In September he scored twice in 25 seconds in a rookie game against the Kings, but he also said the smaller North American rink felt different and that he had to learn as quickly as possible.

His NHL start has been steady rather than loud. He played 13:35 in his debut, a 4-3 overtime win over Florida. Two nights later he picked up his first point, the primary assist on a Tyler Toffoli power-play tip-in, with Macklin Celebrini on the secondary assist, in a 5-4 overtime win over Los Angeles. Then came a 5-0 loss at Dallas. Through three games he has one point and one shot on goal.

The ceiling here is tied to Celebrini, who finished fourth in the league last season with 115 points. NHL.com floated Stenberg as a possible linemate for him, and his first point came with Celebrini on the ice for a power-play goal. San Jose plays at St. Louis on Thursday at 8:00 PM ET.

What it means on the board

• Rookie reputations are built on draft position and last season, not this week. One week in, the box scores say something different for each of these three: McKenna went from one shot a game to four, Martone has two shots in four games, and Stenberg has one shot in three.
• For shots-on-goal and points props, ice time and power-play role are the inputs to watch. All three are playing roughly 11 to 16 minutes a night, below the 17:02 Martone averaged in last season's regular season, and that caps how many chances they get.
• Toronto has played four one-goal games, which is the kind of pattern that shows up when we look at puck line and total goals markets for Thursday's game in Vegas.
• One good night is not a trend and one quiet week is not a slump. Small samples are why we keep pulling the latest box scores before anything goes on the board.

Follow Thursday's games on the NHL board and free picks, catch up on the Predators-Maple Leafs recap, or read how we think about a player prop.

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