The Toronto Maple Leafs got a lifeline this offseason. When they moved up in the 2026 NHL Draft and got the opportunity to take Penn State superstar Gavin McKenna, it opened their contention window all over again. What was looking like a disaster, a Maple Leafs team that left its contention window and didn’t have its first-round picks for multiple years, turned into a one-year turnaround.
The Maple Leafs made all of their big moves this offseason. They let Brad Treliving go and hired John Chayka. They moved on from Craig Berube and hired Jim Hiller as head coach. The failure of the 2025-26 season had major impacts on the direction of the Maple Leafs. It felt like this future with the core four, which was now down Mitch Marner who left for Vegas, was closer to the end than the beginning.
Then, McKenna arrived. Justin Bieber (very strangely) announced the pick at the draft, and there was new life injected into the Maple Leafs. A budding star was back in blue, and he was expected to enhance Auston Matthews’ prime and take pressure off an aging John Tavares.
The arrival of McKenna pushed the Maple Leafs to keep themselves in contention. We do have a Matthews contract decision on the horizon, so it’s best to prove this team can get back to contention status.
They added Darren Raddysh to improve their defense, and Sergei Bobrovsky was acquired to give them championship-level goaltending. They added a few more pieces, like Emil Andrae and Jack Roslovic, to fill out the roster and put last season behind them.
This sounds familiar to New Jersey Devils fans. When the Devils surprisingly got the first-overall pick and the opportunity to draft Jack Hughes in 2019, it changed the trajectory of the franchise. Hughes is a franchise changer and someone to build around.
The New Jersey Devils have a warning for the Toronto Maple Leafs in regards to Gavin McKenna
This might feel like forever ago and the Devils weren’t the contenders that the Maple Leafs were, but this was a team with Taylor Hall just one year removed from an MVP season, fellow first-overall pick Nico Hischier coming into his own, top-ten pick Pavel Zacha entering his prime, and some interesting veterans like Kyle Palmieri, Travis Zajac, Andy Greene, and Cory Schneider.
It seemed like the pieces were already there to compete, but they needed to fill a few holes. The biggest one was on defense, where they were missing their top guy (sound familiar?). So, Ray Shero went out and took on P.K. Subban’s full salary, signed Wayne Simmonds to a $5 million deal, and traded for Russian star Nikita Gusev.
The Devils were awful that season. Hughes was not NHL ready, scoring just 21 points in 61 games. Subban’s back injury changed him as a player forever. Gusev was decent, but he did not make the immediate impact many thought.
And this is when the desperation moves began. The Devils traded Taylor Hall when it was clear they weren’t going to re-sign him. They also traded Blake Coleman (who is still a major contributor today), Simmonds, Sami Vatanen, and captain Andy Greene.
That last one is significant because on top of all of this turmoil on the roster, the Devils also fired both head coach John Hynes and general manager Ray Shero in the middle of the season. So, Jack Hughes was forced to see the chaos that comes with a traded star player, a traded captain, multiple other trades, a fired coach, and a fired GM all while struggling to adjust to the NHL in his rookie season.
If you know the Devils, they are a team of failed expectations. The Maple Leafs do not want to repeat the “success” of the Devils over the past five years.
The Maple Leafs have to take a few lumps this season if that’s how the cookie is crumbling. All of their future changes must come next offseason, if they come at all. Don’t make a desperate Matthews trade. Don’t fire Hiller if he ends up being the wrong choice. Keep the big pieces intact and make sure the locker room is an easy place to be.
Hughes is now a superstar, but it took longer than most expected. McKenna is expected to have a bigger immediate impact since he has a year of college hockey under his belt, but if he struggles, there is no reason to overreact. Playing a few weeks in the AHL isn’t the end of the world, and if it shields McKenna’s confidence to jump start his two-decade career, then it will be worth it.
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