2026 NHL Draft Guide for the Maple Leafs: Date, Time, McKenna and Every Toronto Pick

The 2026 NHL Draft is finally close — here's the Maple Leafs' plan

For the first time in a long time, the 2026 NHL Draft is the biggest night on the Maple Leafs' calendar, and it is now less than two weeks away. Toronto holds the No. 1 overall pick after winning the lottery in May, and the consensus best player in the class — Whitehorse-born winger Gavin McKenna — appears destined to wear blue and white. This is the full guide to when the draft happens, what Toronto owns, and what John Chayka can actually do with it.

After missing the playoffs for the first time in a decade, the Leafs turned a brutal season into the rarest of consolation prizes: a generational pick. The 2026 NHL Draft is where Toronto's reset gets its centrepiece, and the franchise has not picked first overall in a meaningful prospect class in decades. The stakes are real, and so is the upside.

When and where is the 2026 NHL Draft?

The 2026 NHL Draft runs June 26-27 at KeyBank Center in Buffalo. The first round goes Friday, June 26 at 7 p.m. ET, with rounds two through seven on Saturday, June 27. Toronto will be on the clock first, the moment the first round opens. After years of watching the draft from the back half of round one, Leafs fans get to start the show.

This is a return to the traditional in-person, single-location format, with all 32 clubs' management tables on the floor. For Toronto, it means the No. 1 selection happens under the brightest possible lights — and that whoever the Leafs call will pull on a sweater on stage in Buffalo.

Will the Maple Leafs draft Gavin McKenna first overall?

Every signal points that way. McKenna sits atop NHL Central Scouting's final ranking of North American skaters and headlines essentially every public mock draft as Toronto's pick. The 5-foot-11, 170-pound left winger spent his draft-eligible season as a freshman at Penn State, where he posted 51 points (15 goals, 36 assists) in 35 games and ranked among the NCAA's top scorers as a teenager — a remarkable line against grown men.

The organization has signalled its intentions about as loudly as a team can without making it official. Chayka flew to Whitehorse to meet McKenna in person, a trip we covered in detail here, and the Leafs have reportedly told McKenna he is their guy. There was a brief debate about McKenna versus Swedish centre Ivar Stenberg, which we broke down in our McKenna vs Stenberg piece, but the gap at the top of this class has only widened in McKenna's favour.

Should the Leafs trade the No. 1 pick instead?

It is the question that will not go away, and it intensified when Pierre LeBrun reported the Leafs will at least listen on the pick if a team offers a roster-altering package. "Listen" is not "shop," and there is a meaningful difference. A team that wins the lottery and lands a potential franchise winger does not casually flip him — the bar for moving the No. 1 overall pick in a class this top-heavy should be enormous.

Our position has not changed: the honest answer is that Toronto should keep the pick, and we laid out the full argument in why the Leafs should not trade No. 1. Cost-controlled, elite young talent is the single most valuable currency in a $104 million cap world. The Leafs have spent a decade paying premium prices for veterans. A player like McKenna — cheap, ascending, and theirs for years — is the antidote to exactly that problem.

Every Maple Leafs pick in the 2026 NHL Draft

Toronto enters the draft with seven selections, a healthier haul than the Leafs have carried in some recent years. Beyond the No. 1 overall pick, the most notable is an early second-round selection — reported around 59th and 60th overall — including a pick acquired in the Scott Laughton trade that conveyed thanks to the Los Angeles Kings reaching the playoffs, plus a selection in the 69 range.

That second-round capital matters. With McKenna locked in at the top, the rest of Toronto's draft is about adding volume and swinging on upside in the middle rounds — and the Leafs have the ammunition to do it. The Hockey Writers and others have already floated defencemen worth targeting with those second- and third-round picks, a sensible priority for an organization rebuilding its blue line. For the bigger picture on the draft capital Toronto has spent and still owes, see our breakdown of the first-rounders the Leafs owe through 2028.

What McKenna would mean for Toronto's future

Pairing a McKenna-calibre winger with Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and Matthew Knies would give Toronto a forward group few teams could match on paper. More importantly, it gives the Leafs a young, cheap, high-ceiling piece during the exact window their stars are demanding maximum production. Entry-level contracts are the great equalizer in a hard-cap league, and McKenna's would let Chayka spend elsewhere — on defence, on goaltending, on the depth that Carolina just rode to a championship.

There is patience required, too. Most 18-year-olds are not instant saviours, and McKenna may need a season to find his NHL footing even if he is good enough to play right away. The value is the trajectory: a franchise winger on a value deal for the better part of a decade. That is how good teams stay good, and it is something Toronto has not had at the top of its prospect pipeline in a very long time.

What happens after McKenna at the top of round one

The intrigue in this class starts at pick No. 5, where the mock drafts splinter. The top of the board is settled — McKenna is the consensus No. 1 — but opinions diverge sharply once the first handful of names are off the table. That matters to Toronto only indirectly, since the Leafs do not pick again until the second round, but it shapes the trade chatter: clubs that miss on their preferred top-five target are exactly the teams that come calling about moving up, and Toronto's No. 1 selection is the most valuable chip in the building.

The reasonable expectation is that Toronto stands pat at the top, takes McKenna, and turns its attention to the middle rounds. Swedish centre Ivar Stenberg headlines the next tier of prospects, and a deep group of defencemen and two-way forwards populates the back half of round one. For the Leafs, the real draft work — the part that actually adds to the system — happens on day two, when their second- and third-round capital comes into play. That is where a rebuilding pipeline gets restocked, and where Toronto's amateur scouting staff under the new front office gets its first real test.

What's next before draft night

Between now and June 26, watch three things. First, the coaching search — Chayka has signalled he wants a bench boss in place around the draft, and that hire will shape how the new pick is developed. Second, the trade market: the draft floor is where blockbusters get finalized, and Toronto's Morgan Rielly situation and goaltending questions could come to a head in Buffalo. Third, free agency prep ahead of July 1, with the draft serving as the unofficial start of Toronto's offseason sprint.

The bottom line is simple. The 2026 NHL Draft is Toronto's night, the pick is almost certainly McKenna, and the smartest thing the Leafs can do is the simplest: walk to the podium in Buffalo and call his name. Track the rest of Toronto's offseason on our draft hub and standings page.