Jim Hiller sat the first overall pick for 32 minutes and 54 seconds, and his explanation for it is that he forgot to send him back out. "I guess it just didn't happen," Hiller said. "That's on me." He's right that it's on him. He's wrong that "it just didn't happen" counts as a reason.
Gavin McKenna's last shift Thursday ended at the 10:20 mark of the second period with the game tied 2-2. He sat out the rest of the third period and overtime, too. Nine shifts, six minutes and 36 seconds, the fewest of his young career. McKenna is the No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft, an 18-year-old who arrived on a four-game point streak, sat tied for second in rookie scoring leaguewide, and had been one of Toronto's better forwards through the opening couple of weeks.
Hiller was clear the benching had nothing to do with McKenna's performance. Fine. So the only explanation on the table is the one he gave, and it falls apart the second you lay it flat. Penalties ate a stretch of the second period. Then, in Hiller's words, "now I've sat him for so long, and he sits in the intermission." Then he decided not to use him in the third because the kid had already been sitting too long. The reason McKenna didn't play is that McKenna hadn't been playing. A coach with a full bench and three periods to work with talked himself into a loop and never climbed out.
The kindest read is that Hiller was deliberately managing an 18-year-old's minutes, the way he explained scratching young defenseman Brandt Clarke in Los Angeles: the league wears kids down, give them a reset. Except he didn't say that. He never claimed he was protecting anyone. He said he lost the thread, that he "probably should have got him out there early in the third" and "didn't." Developing a prospect takes a plan. This game had none.
It cost Toronto the game. Kirill Marchenko had a hat trick, the Leafs led 4-2 in the third, and they handed it back and lost in overtime on Owen Power's goal. That's their second loss in a row; they're 3-3-2 heading into a game against the Islanders. While all of that came apart, the most dangerous young forward on the roster watched from the bench because his coach had decided, earlier in the night, that he'd been there too long to move.
This should worry Leafs fans more than one loss, because it has happened before. In Los Angeles, Hiller took heat for burying young talent, Clarke and Alex Turcotte among them, and for sitting back and protecting leads when games tightened. The Kings fired him in March, and Toronto hired him in June to replace Craig Berube. The exact reflex that got picked apart out west turned up in his eighth game running this team.
Nobody around the game is buying it either. Brian Burke flatly called the benching "a mistake." Auston Matthews, picking his words like a captain protecting a teammate, said "those things kind of happen sometimes" and that the room has McKenna's back. That's support for the kid. The coach got no cover from him. Toronto also kept McKenna away from reporters afterward, a team decision, so the only voice on this one is Hiller's.
Coaches can make unpopular calls. Sitting a franchise cornerstone for more than half a game and explaining it by admitting he stopped paying attention crosses a line. Hiller says he'll talk to McKenna about it. He should start by explaining it to himself.
