Top NHL Prospect Gavin McKenna Says He Always Had A Feeling He'd End Up At Penn State

There was already going to be a lot of attention on the Penn State Nittany Lions this upcoming college hockey season after the program made a first-ever Frozen Four appearance, but that attention is going to ramp up after the consensus top player in the 2026 NHL Draft Gavin McKenna decided to commit to the school and make the jump from the WHL's Medicine Hat Tigers to the NCAA.

This season will mark the first time that players with experience in the CHL, the top level of junior hockey in Canada, are eligible to compete in the NCAA, and McKenna is headlining a group of ex-CHLers that includes Philadelphia Flyers 2025 first-round pick Porter Martone and Columbus Blue Jackets 2024 first-rounder (and McKenna's Medicine Hat teammate) Cayden Lindstrom, who are both headed to Michigan State.

Speaking of which, Michigan State was one of the programs long-rumored to be a landing spot for McKenna, but in a new interview, he revealed that he always had the sense that he was headed to Happy Valley, or, as it is increasingly known, Hockey Valley.

"From the start of this whole entire process, I got the feeling that it was going to be Penn State that I was going to go to," McKenna said in an interview with The Athletic's Scott Wheeler. "And then once I toured the area and I got to see the facilities and meet some of the people there and some of the guys, it was just a place that I knew right away I could call home and then on top of that they have a great team and they have a chance of winning it, and obviously that’s the goal next year."

Top prospect Gavin McKenna talked about how he always had a feeling he'd pick Penn State as he makes the jump from the CHL to NCAA.  (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)

Penn State has a relatively young hockey program, at least at the NCAA D-1 level. For decades, the school field club teams were in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA), and they made the jump to the NCAA in the mid 2010s, thanks to a donation from Terrence Pegula, the Penn State alum who owns the NHL's Buffalo Sabres and NFL's Buffalo Bills.

Now, the program has stellar facilities, and that helped draw in a big fish like McKenna, who said he's excited for the year ahead.

"There’s a lot of things to be excited about next season," he said. "Heading to college, playing my first game. That’ll be pretty amazing."