Will Gavin McKenna save the Leafs’ current era…or kickstart the new one?
“Mr. McKenna, we would like to draft you to the Toronto Maple Leafs.”
How fitting. Justin Bieber, an international pop icon, knows a thing or two about living in the spotlight, having done so since his early teen years. He was just the man to introduce Gavin McKenna’s life-changing moment.
The 2026 NHL Draft’s top prospect took the stage Friday night at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, shook hands with Bieber and commissioner Gary Bettman, watched a welcome video from Leafs captain Auston Matthews and took the first step toward the blinding glare of hockey’s most pressure-packed market.
“Special moment for sure. This is my dream come true,” Mckenna told reporters on hand at the Draft. “With my family, to walk up on stage with Justin Bieber, this isn’t what I imagined when I was a young kid. It’s so much better.”
By selecting McKenna, 18, the Leafs scored a win simply by not overthinking the pick. He’s a scintillating offensive talent, a left winger with such dazzling puck skills that he put up a staggering 129 points in 56 games with the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers in 2024-25, a season he began as a 16-year-old. Only Connor Bedard has averaged more points per game in a WHL campaign this century. McKenna challenged himself by taking advantage of the NCAA eligibility rule change and taking his talents to Penn State for 2025-26. It took him a while to stand out the way he was expected to but, as Daily Faceoff prospect analyst Steven Ellis noted, McKenna was dominating games against men by season’s end, and McKenna is also “the best equipped of anyone in the draft to handle the pressure” of Toronto, having already spent half a decade under public scrutiny as a prospect.
“I’ve said it before: I think pressure is a privilege,” McKenna told reporters at KeyBank Center Friday night. “So when you go to a fan base like that and you do well, it’s the best spot to be. It’s the biggest market out there. I’m confident in myself, and I want to do good, so hopefully the fan base falls in love with me and it’s a good time.”
Is McKenna a slam-dunk generational prospect? Not quite, despite his prodigious abilities. He has the ceiling to become legendary, but there’s also a floor to monitor for a player whose two-way play still needs refining. Yet if he doesn’t pan out perfectly, the Leafs’ new regime, led by GM John Chayka and executive senior advisor Mats Sundin, will be forgiven for being wrong about someone this gifted, as it would mean we all are. Had the Leafs zagged with another pick and watched McKenna become a superstar, it would’ve been the latest black mark on a franchise with so many. McKenna had to be the choice.
He’s also talented enough and, after a season in college, battle-tested enough that he should jump right to the NHL and contend for the Calder Trophy this coming season. He’ll immediately be a top-six forward upgrade for the Leafs even in the present. That’s not a question, even if he’s modest about his projected role, insisting Friday that he’ll have to prove himself before even getting an opportunity to play with Matthews.
What is a question for this franchise in transition: what does Friday night’s jubilation mean? What does the McKenna pick represent for the club’s future? Where does this team believe it is going?
On one hand: the Leafs finished last in the Atlantic Division this past season. In 5-on-5 play, they allowed the second-most scoring chances in the NHL and generated the fifth-fewest. They were an atrocious hockey team, enough to fire GM Brad Treliving, enough to fire coach Craig Berube, enough to earn sufficient lottery balls to jump from fifth to first in a minor miracle and land McKenna.
Those are the trappings of a bottom-dwelling franchise ready to scorch the earth and build slowly, like the Leafs did in the mid-2010s, parlaying years of playoff misses into the core of Morgan Rielly (2012), William Nylander (2014), Mitch Marner (2015) and Matthews (2016). But the current incarnation of the Leafs doesn’t fit that mold, does it?
The Leafs still have all-time franchise goals leader Matthews signed for two more seasons, with Nylander aboard through 2030-31. John Tavares’ team-friendly deal lasts three more seasons. Matthew Knies, assuming he isn’t traded, has five seasons left on his deal, representing his true prime years given he’s just 23 now. Blueliner Chris Tanev and Jake McCabe, Toronto’s top shutdown pair, are on the books until 2029-30. And to erase any confusion over the short-term plan: the Leafs landed top UFA defenseman Darren Raddysh on a sign-and-trade last week, handing him $8.5 million for the next eight seasons coming off his career year.
So while the Leafs are, in a way, kickstarting a new era with the McKenna pick, it’s apparent Chayka and Mats Sundin see a short-term window in which they intend to take aggressive swings. As long as Matthews is a Leaf, and with no first-round picks until 2029 aside from the Colorado Avalanche 2027 first-rounder acquired for Nicolas Roy, they may as well.
The question now is: what exactly will this reload look like going forward? How much more will change between now and October?
Chayka made more than 40 trades during his four seasons running the Arizona Coyotes, and he parachuted into Toronto just as aggressively after his early-May hiring. Moving goaltender Joseph Woll and defenseman Simon Benoit to the Philadelphia Flyers in a deal that brought defenseman Emil Andrae in as the featured piece signalled an immediate and decisive philosophical shift. Woll made sense to jettison given the Leafs’ surplus of goaltending talent – Artur Akhtamyov, Toronto’s fourth-stringer at the time, just won the AHL playoff MVP as the Marlies won the Calder Cup – but the Benoit/Andrae swap was particularly emblematic. Gone was Benoit, a blunt instrument known for his punishing hits and leaky defensive play. In came the 5-foot-9 waterbug Andrae, whose own-zone play landed him in the 97th percentile this past season, albeit in sheltered minutes. The Leafs were clearly ready to honor MLSE president Keith Pelley’s vow of “data-driven” decision making.
The hiring of coach Jim Hiller, whose Los Angeles Kings teams never finished worse than fifth in 5-on-5 expected goals against during parts of three seasons, represented a doubling down on the organizational shift. Adding Raddysh and his blistering shot meant Chayka was making good on what he acknowledged the day of his introductory presser: that the Leafs needed multiple puck-moving defensemen.
So far this offseason, the Leafs are behaving with urgency. The U.S. Olympic team Manifest Destiny is real; Quinn Hughes pushed his way out of Vancouver last winter, Brady Tkachuk did the same to Ottawa last week, and we await the fates of Dylan Larkin, Connor Hellebuyck and Zach Werenski. Toronto appears determined to show Matthews he can still win here. It was at least a positive sign for his buy-in to see his welcome video to McKenna, if it’s worth putting stock into such gestures.
But can the Leafs actually morph back into a winner before Matthews’ contract expires in 2028? The Atlantic Division remains an absolute viper pit. The Florida Panthers have reloaded with Tkachuk and should push their way back into the playoff picture next season. The Montreal Canadiens just became the youngest Eastern Conference finalist in more than 30 years. The Tampa Bay Lightning are contenders every season and have the reigning Hart Trophy winner, Vezina Trophy winner and Jack Adams Award winner. Over in the Metropolitan Division, the Carolina Hurricanes are Stanley Cup champs, built to keep contending for years to come, while the Washington Capitals have loaded up more than any other NHL team so far this offseason, landing Alex Tuch and Jordan Kyrou. The Leafs, then, have an upstream swim to relevance.
McKenna, even as a rookie, will bring a playmaking dynamism the team badly lacked this past season after Marner’s departure. Matthews and Tanev will start their seasons healthy in theory. Youngsters like Easton Cowan gained valuable experience during the Calder Cup run. And the Leafs’ D-corps is obviously upgraded. But the team’s bottom-six forward group remains a black hole, it’s unclear if Matthews’ body will ever let him play like a true superstar again, and there’s a large gap to bridge from playing some of the worst play-driving hockey in the NHL to even functioning as a league-average unit.
If the Leafs are truly serious about contending for the remainder of Matthews’ contract, then, the work cannot be done. Chayka must put his $18.76 million in cap space to good use, and that means making tough decisions on qualifying offers for RFAs such as Matias Maccelli, Nick Robertson and Jacob Quillan in the next couple days, especially if Rielly and his $7.5 million AAV stay put.
If not: we’ll look back on Toronto’s June transaction flurry as a push over the edge toward a Matthews farewell and the start of an era built around McKenna rather than a climb back to chasing championships in the short erm.
With files from Steven Ellis
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