Jared McCann will centre the Canucks top line on Tuesday as captain Henrik Sedin is sidelined until at least the end of the month with injury. Photograph by: Jeff Vinnick , NHLI via Getty Images

NEW YORK — Jared McCann is pushing back his boyish hair to reveal a scar on his forehead from childhood, which really wasn’t that long ago.

I can’t see anything but don’t want to disappoint him, so just nod encouragingly. Besides, we already know the 19-year-old is tougher than he looks.

“I’ve still got some scars up top,” he said. “My brother, Jordan, is like 6-4, 6-5. He was a football player, a big boy. Mini-sticks (hockey) was huge in our house. I loved mini-sticks. Downstairs in the basement, we had some battles. We had some battles.”

Now, McCann is having some in the National Hockey League.

Sunday, the rookie from London, Ont., traded whacks — and they weren’t with mini-sticks — with New York Islanders captain John Tavares. Earlier this season, he tussled in a camper-versus-grizzly kind of way with Anaheim Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf.

Built like a six-foot-tall skateboarder, McCann has stubborn toughness to go with his skill.

“I always want to play with an edge,” he said after practising Monday with the Vancouver Canucks in New Jersey. “If guys see that you’re going to be pushed around, they’re going to continue to do it. I don’t want to be one of those guys who just gets sticked and not do anything about it. I’m going to defend myself.”

So, he’s sort of opposite to Daniel and Henrik Sedin, and yet those two players are also quietly among the toughest who’ve ever played for the Canucks.

Interestingly, it is McCann replacing Hank Sedin tonight on the top line when the Canucks visit the New York Rangers.

Sedin was to be sent home to heal after getting launched into the boards Sunday by Islander Mikhail Grabovski, who was assessed a game misconduct but no further discipline by the NHL after the Canucks’ 2-1 shootout win.

Sedin, who earlier in his career went more than eight years without missing a game despite defencemen trying to bludgeon him nightly, appeared to injure his shoulder in Brooklyn, although he was well enough Monday to do some rigorous cardio work while teammates skated.

Canucks coach Willie Desjardins said Sedin probably won’t play again until after the NHL all-star break Jan. 28-31. That means McCann, who was supposed to be playing junior hockey this season, could be the Canucks’ first-line centre for at least the next four games.

It means also that when Danny Sedin scores one more goal to surpass mentor Markus Naslund’s franchise record of 346 goals, the assist could go to a player who was starting kindergarten when the 35-year-old Sedins were starting in the NHL.

“Either it says how young he is or more about how old we are,” Daniel said Monday.

Henrik has assisted on 246 of his brother’s goals, but could miss out on the historic one.

“I think he’ll be happy if it happens,” Daniel said, having spent approximately zero time thinking about the record. “I’ll be happy, too.”

McCann, on the other hand, would be ecstatic.

It was less than three weeks ago when Desjardins announced that McCann’s minutes would be dialed back and he wouldn’t play some nights so the Canucks could “manage” his physical development. McCann needs to get stronger and probably heavier. Only two games ago, the 2014 first-round draft pick was a healthy scratch for the third time this month.