Gavin McKenna made his Maple Leafs debut Saturday night, and Toronto's crowd made sure he felt it from his very first shift.
Toronto dropped this one to Montreal, but the final score wasn't really the story by the time the horn sounded.
McKenna logged 19 minutes and 13 seconds of ice time in his first NHL game and put three shots on goal.
He also took two penalty minutes on the night, a small footnote buried under everything else beautiful that happened around him.
Every time McKenna touched the puck, Scotiabank Arena reacted like he was a returning star, not a rookie making his first appearance.
He didn't register a point. The finish will come or it won't, but nobody left the building saying he needs to prove more.
The Marner comparison Leafs fans can't stop making
Mitch Marner never got that kind of unconditional love in Toronto, no matter how the underlying numbers actually read.
Marner is with Vegas now, carrying a cap hit of $12,000,000, a strange footnote given how his Toronto years are remembered by that same fanbase.
Is that fair to Marner? Probably not entirely. But fair isn't really the question fans are asking right now.
McKenna hasn't scored a single goal yet, and the building didn't seem to care one bit.
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Toronto is back in action Wednesday against Ottawa, and the next test for McKenna is turning that ovation into something that shows up in the box score.
I don't know if the honeymoon between McKenna and the Toronto fans will last, but one thing is certain: he doesn't have the same pressure Marner had to deal with, at least for now, and that's a great thing.
Should Maple Leafs fans give Gavin McKenna more patience than they ever gave Mitch Marner?
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