The Leafs' Draft Lottery Math: 41.8% to Keep the Pick, and What Each Outcome Triggers

May 5 is the whole offseason

The 2026 NHL Draft Lottery is scheduled for Tuesday, May 5. For the Toronto Maple Leafs — who finished the regular season fifth-last in the league at 28th overall — that single evening of ping pong balls does more to shape the direction of the franchise than any free-agent signing the team will make in July.

The headline number is 41.8%. That's the reported compound probability that the Leafs keep their top-5-protected 2026 first-round pick, which was conditionally traded to the Boston Bruins in the Brandon Carlo deal on March 7, 2025. Miss on that 41.8% and the pick goes to Boston. Hit on it, and the Leafs add a top-5 prospect to a pipeline that has been thin for most of the Matthews era — while also triggering a chain reaction of conditional pick obligations through 2028.

The lottery mechanics

Two drawings determine the top of the draft order. The NHL runs a first drawing for the #1 overall pick and a second drawing for #2 overall. The remaining picks 3 through 16 are awarded in reverse order of regular-season standings.

The key rule: a team can only move up a maximum of 10 spots in either drawing. That means only the bottom 11 teams in the standings are eligible to win the first overall pick. Toronto, sitting at position 5 among non-playoff teams (fifth-worst record), comfortably sits within that eligibility window — they can, in principle, move as high as #1.

The Vancouver Canucks enter the lottery with the best odds, at 18.5% to win outright and roughly 25.5% to land #1 if a team in the 12-16 range wins and maxes out the 10-spot jump. Toronto's odds of winning the first overall pick are in the 8.5% range — meaningful, but well behind the teams ahead of them in the lottery queue.

Why it's 41.8%, not 85%

The Leafs don't need to win the lottery to keep their pick. They need their pick to land inside the top 5. That's a much lower bar.

The 41.8% number is a compound probability calculated across every possible lottery outcome. It reflects three different ways the Leafs can end up picking top-5:

• Outcome A: No team currently below Toronto in the lottery queue (positions 1-4) wins either drawing and no team from positions 6-16 wins and moves into the top 5. Toronto picks 5th by default.
• Outcome B: Toronto itself wins either the first or second drawing. The Leafs jump into the top 2 or top 3 range, automatically keeping the pick.
• Outcome C: A team from positions 1-4 (the four worst teams) wins one or both drawings without displacing Toronto out of the top 5. The Leafs drop a spot but stay at 4th or 5th, keeping the pick.

The 58.2% loss scenario is almost entirely one variant: a team in the range of positions 6 through 14 wins a drawing and jumps into the top 5, pushing Toronto down to 6th overall. That's the specific lottery outcome — a team with better odds-adjusted standing leapfrogging upward — that costs the Leafs their pick.

If the pick stays: what the Leafs get

Assuming the 41.8% hits, the Leafs pick somewhere in the top 5. The 2026 draft class has a clear consensus at #1 in Gavin McKenna, the 18-year-old left-shot forward who finished a historic season between the WHL's Medicine Hat Tigers and Penn State. He's on every serious top-of-the-draft list; NHL Central Scouting had him first among North American skaters at the midterm rankings.

Behind him, the consensus softens. Ivar Stenberg out of Sweden slots into the top three on most lists. Keaton Verhoeff, a right-shot defenseman, is the highest-rated blueliner in the class and projects into the top 5 or top 10 depending on the ranking. The rest of the top 5-to-10 range is in active churn through spring viewings.

What this means for Toronto: a top-3 selection almost certainly yields either McKenna, Stenberg, or a consolation prize with real upside. A top-5 selection in the 4-to-5 range dips slightly into the range where opinions diverge sharply, but still nets a legitimate first-line projection. Any of those outcomes would materially upgrade a prospect pool that hasn't produced a top-line forward since Matthews himself.

If the pick goes to Boston

The 58.2% downside scenario: the Leafs' pick falls to 6th overall or later, and Boston takes it. Toronto's 2026 draft haul then collapses to a third-round pick plus whatever conditional picks arrive from the deadline moves (the lattermost of Boston/Colorado/Philadelphia's fifth-rounders, plus Anaheim's fourth, plus San Jose's sixth). For a team with nine-figure payroll commitments and a cratered regular season, that's a thin harvest.

The cascade effect is worth tracking as well. If the Leafs do keep the 2026 pick, the Carlo trade conditions shift the obligation to 2027. Per the draft page, Boston then has a conditional claim on Toronto's 2027 or 2028 first, depending on how the 2027 lottery plays out.

Philadelphia has a separate conditional claim through the Scott Laughton trade: Toronto's 2027 1st (top-10 protected) becomes PHI's if the Leafs keep the 2026 pick. If the 2027 pick is itself top-10 protected and the Leafs miss the playoffs again, the obligation slides forward — potentially to the 2028 first, which is itself now entangled in both Boston and Philadelphia claims.

In short: keeping the 2026 pick is clean. Losing it triggers one set of obligations (simplifies 2027 and 2028). Keeping it triggers a different, more complicated set of obligations that continues to cost the team first-round picks in future drafts. Neither outcome is a get-out-of-jail card. The 2026 pick is the one positive draft outcome that, if it materializes, moves the rebuild forward without mortgaging it further.

What Brad Treliving actually controls

Nothing, mechanically. The ping pong balls are the ping pong balls. Treliving will attend the lottery in Secaucus and watch with the same nerves every GM does. Any hint that Toronto deliberately tanked down the stretch — as some have suggested, noting the team's late-season willingness to shed veterans and play younger — is both unprovable and irrelevant by May 5.

What Treliving can do around the lottery: prepare two separate plans. Plan A, executed if the pick stays top-5, centres on drafting and developing a franchise forward while leaning into the remaining window with Matthews and Nylander. Plan B, executed if the pick goes to Boston, requires a more aggressive approach to free agency and trades to replenish the top-6, because there won't be a 2026 first-rounder coming through the system to do it organically.

Both plans use the 2026-27 cap increase to $104M. Both plans involve difficult RFA decisions on Matias Maccelli and Nicholas Robertson. Both plans require a clear answer on whether Craig Berube remains as head coach. The difference is how much of the roster repair has to come from the draft versus the cheque book — and that's the difference May 5 determines.

The short version

41.8% the Leafs keep their 2026 first-round pick. If they do, they're picking in the top 5, with McKenna, Stenberg, or Verhoeff at the top of the realistic board. If they don't, Boston takes it, 2027 and 2028 conditions simplify, and the Leafs' rebuild has to come from cap space rather than the draft.

Either way: May 5 is the single most important day on the Leafs' calendar between now and the start of next season. Watch the draft page — it'll update within hours of the lottery.