The hockey world collectively gasped in shock on Tuesday night as the Toronto Maple Leafs won the draft lottery, giving them the first overall pick for the third time in franchise history.
Previous #1 selections by the Maple Leafs Wendell Clark in 1985, and Auston Matthews in 2016 both went on to be franchise cornerstones for many years, and with an uncertain future after a rough 2025-26 campaign, the hope is their newest addition to the "#1 overall pick club" can do the same.
But could the Toronto Maple Leafs actually be better off trading the pick?
It might sound crazy, but there's a team in the NHL who's in a far worse situation than the Leafs, and could be willing to pay a massive haul of assets for pick #1 this year.
Maple Leafs should trade pick No. 1 to the Vancouver Canucks
The Vancouver Canucks have reached rock-bottom. They're fresh off of a 32nd-placed season, 14 points back of the next closest team, dropped to pick #3 in the draft lottery, and began phase one of their rebuild, the teardown.
While they got back some solid assets in the Quinn Hughes trade, the future for the Canucks is dark, and they're still very far from being a playoff team.
But a trade for pick #1 could help change that. Of course, adding one player won't solve all of their problems, but at least they'll have some hope, look at what Macklin Celebrini or Matthew Schaefer were able to bring to their respective teams in their rookie seasons.
Pros and cons of selecting Gavin McKenna
Despite lots of debate around the top of the 2026 NHL Draft for much of the season, it still looks like Gavin McKenna is going to go first overall this June. As good as McKenna could end up being, do the Leafs need another winger in the system?
I'm not so sure they do, as with William Nylander still around and the likes of Matthew Knies and Easton Cowan still on the rise, the Leafs don't really need another winger, especially with the bigger holes on the roster that exist.
The Canucks on the other hand, need whatever they can get. Especially with McKenna, a Western Canadian boy who would be the face of their franchise in an instant.
Leafs and Canucks should swap picks
Trading pick #1 is sure to get you a boatload of assets in return, which is exactly what the Leafs need. The Canucks aren't loaded with picks or prospects like other bottom teams, but they do have some pieces that are worth looking at.
Getting the likes of Zeev Buium or Marco Rossi might be too much, but the package for first overall would start with the Canucks pick at #3. Liam Ohgren, Tom Willander, and the Canucks second first-round pick (via Minnesota) would be other assets I'd want in return, but if you can add Buium or Rossi, that would be hitting the jackpot.
As for the pick at third overall, the Leafs would have a few options. Taking centreman Caleb Malhotra could help fill the void down the middle once John Tavares inevitably slows down, but their bigger hole is on defense, where they've been lacking a true top-pair guy since 2018-19 Morgan Rielly.
Chase Reid, Carson Carels, or even Keaton Verhoeff could help fill that gap for the Leafs, and high-end d-men are much harder to come across compared to wingers.
How good is Gavin McKenna, actually?
We'll never truly know until he starts playing, but is Gavin McKenna going to be a superstar in the NHL? Does he end up having a career comparable to that of Nikita Kucherov or Macklin Celebrini?
Or is he the next Alexis Lafreniere? A Canadian junior superstar who never really figured it out fully at the NHL level. After all, both guys are high-scoring Canadian wingers who torched the CHL and World Juniors before going pro.
Whatever team he ends up on, however, I hope McKenna has a successful career. I rarely cheer against anyone, but McKenna's multiple legendary performances in a Team Canada uniform make him real easy to root for.
Again, all of this is extremely hypothetical, I truly can't see the Leafs trading pick #1.
But if they were to do so, the Canucks would be the perfect partner.
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