I was most intrigued by MacKenzie from the offensive blueline in, where he showed some poise and strong lateral mobility to pull pucks to the middle of the ice by walking the line with his head up and looking to thread pucks through shooting lanes. There were even a couple of times where he was able to execute a quick pivot at the line in order to shake pressure up high and break into secondary and tertiary coverage in the offensive zone. I noted a handful of times where MacKenzie was able to gain separation below the defensive goal line by digging into hiss edges and cutting hard away from the opposing forechecker in order to move the puck up ice and initiate the breakout. He wasn’t shy at joining the rush when there was an opportunity by acting as the trailing option and giving the puck-carrier and option up top in the high slot. The rush defending is still a work in the progress, but with the overall skating package there are some opportunities for development in that regard.

As the only defender on the roster playing U18 this season, MacKenzie brought a detailed and mature style of play to all three zones. I liked his scanning habits going back on retrievals, which allowed him to anticipate the forecheck pressure and make heady plays on reversals to teammates to initiate the breakout. He was making smart activations in the transition game throughout, opting to jump in and join the rush by driving the net and looking to deflect pucks from the low slot. MacKenzie was getting plenty of pucks through from the offensive blueline as well, showing good lateral mobility to walk the line with his head up to create shooting lanes for himself and fire low hard shots looking for tips in front.

He’s not the flashiest of defenders, but MacKenzie’s play in this one showed signs of an intelligent and robust defender who could kill plays in transition and move the puck up quickly to his forwards. His rush defending was very impressive, as he was able to use his body to stay square to oncoming attackers, guide them to the exterior and utilize his stick to thwart attempts to get to the inside. He wasn’t afraid to anticipate and jump in the neutral zone to either get a stick on a pass or use his body to stop an attacker dead in his tacks to nullify controlled entries. He scored his teams 3rd goal of the game when he picked up a puck at the point, kept his head up and got a shot through traffic that found twine.