Gavin McKenna has an NHL contract, a first-overall draft slot and a city of three million people watching his every shift. What he doesn’t have is his own apartment.
The 18-year-old is spending his rookie season living with John Tavares, his wife Aryne and their three kids. It is a nice story. It is also not a new one.
McKenna is at least the fourth young Maple Leaf to move into the Tavares house. The three before him have gone on to very different places.
Why is Gavin McKenna living with John Tavares?
Because Tavares wants him to have somewhere to go when Toronto gets loud — and Toronto has been loud about McKenna since the Leafs won the draft lottery.
“When it does feel heavy at times, or when it is a lot, going through it for the first time, he has that ability to just be in a family environment,” Tavares told TSN.
McKenna grew up in Whitehorse, Yukon, and has lived away from home since his junior days in Medicine Hat — everything you need to know about him is here. He has sounded more than happy with the arrangement, and he has been open about what he thinks of the Leafs in general.
“He has been awesome. He’s super dialled in and has a lot of knowledge,” McKenna said at rookie camp. “For me, being a young guy, having a veteran like that take me under his wing, it’s perfect.”
Who did John Tavares live with as a rookie?
Doug Weight. Tavares went first overall to the New York Islanders in 2009 and moved in with the veteran center’s family on Long Island when he broke into the league, according to NHL.com.
Almost two decades and one homecoming signing with Toronto later, Tavares is the one with the spare room.
Matthew Knies
Knies turned pro with Toronto in April 2023, straight out of the University of Minnesota, and moved in with the Tavares family. He was still there when the 2023-24 season opened, and got his own place that winter.
Tavares called him “a real natural fit” that fall, and joked that instead of hiring babysitters, he just hires good guys from the team.
How it turned out: about as well as anyone could have hoped. Knies, a second-round pick, signed a six-year, $46.5 million extension in the summer of 2025 and put up 23 goals and 66 points in 79 games last season. He is locked in as a core Leaf through 2031-32.
Fraser Minten: the one that got away
Minten was 19 when he made the opening-night roster in October 2023, and he moved in with the Tavares family during his stint with the big club. What stuck with him was the work habits.
“Guys pushing to be Hall of Famers … it’s not an accident that those guys are there, and there for so long,” Minten told TSN that December. “You pick up on their habits. They’re really focused (and) committed. Definitely contagious.”
A few weeks later, on Christmas Eve in Gothenburg, he found out he was captain of Canada’s World Junior team — from a FaceTime call with Tavares and his two boys. “Got pretty close with him and his boys when I was there, so that was pretty sweet,” Minten said.
How it turned out: brilliantly, just not in Toronto. The Leafs sent Minten to Boston at the 2025 trade deadline in the deal for defenseman Brandon Carlo, along with a first-round pick and a fourth. Minten played all 82 games for the Bruins last season, scored 17 goals and 35 points, finished 10th in Calder Trophy voting — and on 8 September signed a seven-year, $50.4 million extension.
In Boston, that trade has aged about as well as a trade can. In Toronto, less so.
Easton Cowan: last year’s guest
Cowan spent the 2025-26 season living with the Tavares family as a rookie.
It was not a good year to be a rookie in Toronto. The Leafs finished last in the Atlantic Division, missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade, and Cowan’s role came and went.
How it turned out: better than the NHL numbers suggest. Cowan finished with 11 goals and 29 points in 66 games, then went down to the Marlies and won the Calder Cup. He heads into camp with a real shot at a bigger role.
So what does that mean for McKenna?
The track record is better than you might guess. Of the three players who lived there before him, one is a core Leaf on a long-term deal, one is a $50 million center in Boston, and one just won a championship and is pushing for a regular NHL job.
None of them flamed out. The one real regret belongs to the Leafs front office, not to the house.
McKenna comes in with more hype than any of them. Toronto opens its season against Montreal on 29 September — here’s how to watch the Leafs this season — and he goes home at night to a house that has done this three times already.
