Maple Leafs Reportedly Told Gavin McKenna He's the First Overall Pick

The Leafs have reportedly told Gavin McKenna he's the first overall pick

The Maple Leafs have reportedly told Gavin McKenna, to his face, that he will be the first overall pick at the 2026 NHL Draft on June 26. According to a report that surfaced out of the NHL Scouting Combine in Buffalo this week, Toronto's management group did not dance around the question with the projected No. 1 prospect — they told him the plan is to call his name first. It is the clearest signal yet that the most-anticipated draft pick in franchise history since the Auston Matthews lottery is already, in practice, decided.

Nothing is official until commissioner Gary Bettman reads the card at KeyBank Center on June 26. But for a fan base that has spent two months toggling between McKenna and Swedish forward Ivar Stenberg, the message landing directly with the player is the strongest tell we have had.

What was actually reported

The substance of the report is simple: a source who was at the combine relayed that the Maple Leafs told McKenna they intend to draft him first overall. Toronto, in other words, gave the 18-year-old its word. The team has not confirmed it publicly, and the NHL has not commented, so this remains a report rather than an announcement — file it under "reportedly" until June 26.

That caveat matters, because GM John Chayka has been studiously non-committal in his public availabilities. He has talked about an "upper tier" of five or six players and repeated the front office's mantra of taking the best player available. Telling a teenager privately that he is the guy, while telling reporters the board is still open, is exactly the kind of two-track messaging that smart front offices run during draft season. It keeps leverage on the table without bruising the player you have already chosen.

It is also, frankly, a kindness. The pre-draft weeks are an anxious blur for any prospect, and a 1-1 candidate gets pulled in a dozen directions by media and agents. Quietly settling McKenna's nerves costs Toronto nothing and buys goodwill with a player the franchise hopes to employ for fifteen years.

Chayka's public hedge versus the private certainty

Read Chayka's combine comments closely and the gap is obvious. He said the "probability is we take the pick" — an acknowledgement that trading the selection, while theoretically possible, is not the plan. He praised Stenberg by name, calling himself "really fond of him," and said he was impressed by the depth of the 2026 class. All of that is the language of a GM protecting optionality.

But optionality is not indecision. A team that has privately told McKenna he is the pick has, functionally, made its call and is simply declining to give the rest of the league free information. We dug into why this front office is almost certainly keeping the selection in our look at whether the Leafs should trade the No. 1 pick — the honest answer was no, and this reporting reinforces it.

The Whitehorse visit told the same story

The combine report does not exist in a vacuum. Chayka flew to Whitehorse to spend time with McKenna and his family in the Yukon, a trip we covered when McKenna revealed it — see why Chayka flew to Whitehorse. GMs do not personally make that journey for a player they are ambivalent about. Chayka came away describing McKenna as "a really nice young man" from a "really quality family," and called him "a small-town kid." The hometown visit and the combine conversation are two halves of the same courtship.

For McKenna, the relationship-building cuts both ways. The Leafs are not just drafting a prospect; they are recruiting a franchise centrepiece who will eventually negotiate an entry-level deal and, years from now, a second contract in the most scrutinized hockey market on earth. Establishing trust early is part of the job, and a market that chewed up plenty of young Leafs before him is a fair thing to get ahead of.

Why McKenna over Stenberg

The case for McKenna is the case for the highest-ceiling forward to enter the draft in years. The left wing spent 2025-26 in the NCAA at Penn State and dominated against older competition, the kind of age-relative production that scouts treat as a flashing green light. He pairs elite skill and hockey sense with the competitiveness teams want at the top of a draft.

Stenberg is no consolation prize. He topped NHL Central Scouting's final ranking of International skaters after a season with Frolunda in the Swedish Hockey League, where he posted 33 points in 43 games against men. In most draft years he would be the conversation. This year he is the strong second option, which is why Chayka keeps his name in the public mix. We broke down the head-to-head in the real case for McKenna versus Stenberg, and the reporting now points clearly one way.

What McKenna would mean for the rebuild

The Leafs landed this pick by missing the playoffs and then winning the lottery at 8.5 per cent odds, a swing of fortune we documented when they won the 2026 draft lottery. Adding a player of McKenna's projected calibre to a core of Matthews, Nylander and Knies is the rare gift of a generational talent dropping onto a roster that already has high-end pieces.

He will not be expected to carry the team as a rookie, and that is the point. A young, cost-controlled star on an entry-level contract is exactly the asset a cap-constrained Toronto roster needs as Chayka reshapes the supporting cast around his veterans. The fit is about timeline as much as talent: McKenna's cheap years can overlap with the back half of Matthews' prime, the window when a contender most needs to spend its dollars on the supporting cast rather than the centrepiece.

The only ways this changes

If the Leafs have told McKenna he is the pick, what could still flip it? Realistically, very little. A blow-the-doors-off trade offer is the only scenario worth entertaining, and Chayka has all but closed that door publicly. Medical red flags can theoretically reorder a board, but nothing of the sort has been reported about McKenna. Barring the genuinely unforeseen, the combine message is the plan.

The bigger near-term intrigue is not at first overall but everywhere after it. Toronto's pick capital beyond this selection is thin, the product of recent win-now trades, so how Chayka manoeuvres on Day 2 — and whether he packages futures to move up or add a roster piece — will tell us more about his draft philosophy than the foregone conclusion at the top.

What's next

The first round goes June 26 at 7 p.m. ET at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, with rounds two through seven on June 27. Between now and then, expect Chayka to keep the public board open while the private plan stays locked. If the reporting holds, the only suspense on draft night will be McKenna's walk to the stage in a Leafs sweater. Keep an eye on our draft hub for the full board and Toronto's later-round targets as the date approaches.

For a generational prospect to land on a team with this much established talent is the kind of break the Leafs have rarely caught. Barring a stunner, the wait ends in Buffalo — and if the combine report is accurate, McKenna already knows it.