What the Leafs Should Target in Each Round of the 2026 NHL Draft

The constraints before the strategy

Strategy in a draft isn't "take the best player available" or "draft for need" — it's figuring out what your own pool is missing, where your picks fall, which archetypes your scouting staff is actually good at identifying, and building a round-by-round plan that respects all three. Leafs-specific constraints going into 2026:

• The pool is thin: 25th-to-28th in most public rankings. Toronto cannot afford to over-index on long-shot projects when higher-floor options are available.
• The pick slate is light: Seven picks at best, six if the conditional 1st goes to Boston. No 2nd-rounder. Fewer swings than usual.
• The structural needs are clear: Per the offseason needs piece, the NHL roster is short on play-driving wingers, middle-six centers, and right-shot defensemen. The prospect pool mirrors those gaps.
• The scouting staff has patterns: Mark Hunter's scouts have hit on OHL forwards and mid-round WHL defensemen more reliably than on European flyers. Play to that strength.

Round by round:

Round 1 (5th overall, conditional): Björck, or whoever the best top-six forward is

If the lottery hits and the Leafs keep their pick, this selection does more to move the rebuild timeline than any free-agent signing possibly could. The mandate is simple: take the best projected top-six forward on the board.

In the current consensus, that's Viggo Björck at 5. Swedish center/winger, elite passer, SHL-seasoned at 18. Fills the Marner-shaped hole on the creation side of the top-six and projects to enter the league in 2027-28 at the earliest — which lines up with Matthews' current contract running out in 2028 and the cap cliff starting in earnest.

If Björck is gone, the next-best fit is the top forward remaining — not a defenseman, not a goalie. The Leafs don't need a top-pair D prospect right now; they need scoring talent in the pipeline. If that means passing on Keaton Verhoeff at his highest possible slot, pass on him.

Do not trade down from 5. The talent cliff between the top 8 and the 9-to-20 range is real. Trading down costs more than it gains.

Round 2 (no pick): Find one

Toronto doesn't own a 2026 2nd-rounder. Per the draft page, it went to Chicago in 2023. A six-pick draft is a thin one; a five-active-selection draft before Round 4 is thinner.

The strategic play here is to acquire a 2nd-rounder between now and draft night. Trade options:

• Trade a later pick plus a minor-league asset for a team willing to offload a 2nd.
• Package Nicholas Robertson — an expiring RFA with NHL-level minutes on his résumé — to a team in need of a cheap depth forward for a 2026 2nd-round pick.
• Trade the back half of the Leafs' 5th-round inventory (they have two 5ths) for a later 2nd-round pick on draft floor.

Any of those moves is worth doing. A 2nd-round pick in a class this deep at the top — with strong Russian and Finnish middle-round candidates in particular — is more valuable than the Leafs' 5th-round lottery tickets.

Round 3 (roughly pick 80): OHL center or two-way forward

This is a slot where Leafs scouting has historically hit. The 2023 Easton Cowan selection (pick 28 in Round 1, but the scouting profile was "gritty OHL center with upside") is the template. The 2025 Tyler Hopkins pick (86th overall) is a more recent version of the same archetype.

Target at the Leafs' Round 3 slot: another OHL or WHL two-way center or play-driving forward. The pool is already deep in Finnish prospects (Holinka, Koblar). Another one is redundant. A reliable CHL center/forward with third-line or fourth-line projection is the direct complement.

Prospects specifically worth watching in this range based on the Round 3 mock: Parker Vaughan, Brooks Rogowski, Alessandro Di Iorio, and Ryder Cali fit the archetype.

Round 4 (Anaheim's pick, roughly 115-125): Right-shot D or goalie

Toronto acquired Anaheim's 4th-rounder on March 6, 2026. It lands late in Round 4 depending on Anaheim's finishing position. This is the round where the Leafs' organizational gaps matter most: right-shot D depth and goaltending.

The right-shot D side of the prospect pool — Ben Danford is the only NHL-projection name — needs reinforcement. Fourth-round right-shot defensemen typically become reliable organizational depth at best; that's still a useful outcome for Toronto. Topi Niemelä's development arc has stalled, Myers is a UFA, Carlo is a UFA in 2027. The cupboard gets bare quickly.

If right-shot D isn't available at a good value, a goalie in the Brady Knowling / Dmitri Borichev range is worth a look. The Leafs are thin behind Stolarz and Woll; the Hildeby/Akhtyamov duo is solid but needs reinforcement in the three-year plan.

Round 5 (two picks): Swing on skill

Toronto has two 5th-round picks — their own, plus the conditional lattermost of Boston, Colorado, and Philadelphia's 5th-rounders (via the Nicolas Roy trade).

This is the round to swing on tools, not floor. Fifth-rounders rarely become NHL regulars on safety profile alone; the hits come from picks where a specific tool (shot, skating, hockey IQ) is genuinely first-round grade but something else — size, defensive game, attitude — dropped the player. Examples across the league include recent 5th-rounders like Wyatt Johnston (Toronto's own pick in 2021, later traded) and Alex Laferriere.

Specific fit at the Leafs' two 5th-round slots: one should be a high-skill CHL forward with a clear tool case (shooter, passer, or skater), and one should be a European project in one of the Finnish or Swedish U-20 leagues. The Leafs have a strong development program at the Marlies level; late-round European projects get a better timeline than most teams can offer.

Round 6 (San Jose's pick): Size or compete

The 6th-round pick acquired from San Jose in the Timothy Liljegren trade lands in the late-round area where lottery tickets live. The 10%-hit-rate reality applies; swing on something that could theoretically translate.

Specifically: a 6-foot-3-or-taller forward with NHL-frame physical tools is the archetype worth this pick. Leafs' existing depth chart is short on size at center and on the wing; Nansi's OHL Most Improved breakout at 6-foot-3 is the example of the kind of player that justifies a 6th-round swing. Another one doesn't hurt.

Round 7 (Leafs' own): NCAA-commit flier

Seventh round picks are dartboards. The most value-efficient use of a 7th-round dartboard for the 2026 Leafs is a player with an NCAA commitment — a 4-year developmental runway where the cost of the pick is essentially zero for the first three of those years, and the team retains rights throughout.

NCAA-commit 7th-rounders occasionally pop (see: Brock Boeser, Seth Jones' brother Caleb). The Leafs have the Marlies infrastructure to absorb a developing NCAA player whose timeline extends to 2030.

Targets: a USHL forward with Boston College or Michigan commitment in hand, or a prep-school defender with an NCAA scholarship. Specific name-level speculation at this range of the draft is almost never accurate, so the archetype matters more than the individual player.

The thing that would move the draft most

Before the lottery, any Leafs draft-strategy piece has to acknowledge that a single outcome — a May 5 lottery win or a slide to sixth — swings everything. If the pick stays top-5, the strategy above holds as written. If the pick goes to Boston, the Leafs' 2026 draft becomes a six-selection affair starting in Round 3, which pushes the priority toward trading for additional picks and making every late-round swing count more.

Regardless of what happens, the single biggest in-house move Toronto can make between now and June 26 is finding a 2nd-round pick — whether through a trade, a pick-swap, or an expiring-player move. A six-pick draft with three early picks in the top 90 is a workable class. A six-pick draft that skips from the 1st directly to the 3rd is the same thing with one of the draft's best value-return ranges missing entirely.

Watch the draft page. It updates after every move.