For an organization that had no appetite for a long rebuild process, as per the mandate coming right from ownership, the Toronto Maple Leafs couldn’t have received a better boost to a retool than winning the draft lottery on Tuesday night.

The Leafs entered the lottery with likely the most at stake in the entire NHL, given there was a 58.2 percent chance of losing their pick entirely as part of the Brandon Carlo trade made at the 2025 deadline. Leaping all the way up to No. 1, meanwhile, came with just 8.5 percent odds.

Going from the possibility of not having a pick to making the No. 1 selection should make a dramatic difference to the Leafs roster — and new general manager John Chayka’s plans to revamp it in short order.

Toronto’s good fortune comes in what’s considered a stacked year at the top of the draft, with two forwards with superstar-level talent projected to go 1-2 and then a handful of high-end defensemen in the next tier of young players available.

You don’t always get a player who can step into the NHL right away and make an impact, but the 2026 draft may have as many as five or six who do just that. And the Leafs, with the first selection, will obviously get one of them.

Unlike a lot of teams that pick in the top five, the Leafs have a lot of established, veteran NHL talent. In fact, Toronto is one of the oldest teams in the NHL and has the majority of this past season’s roster under contract, with 17 players signed and two more set to become restricted free agents (Matias Maccelli and Nick Robertson) under team control. This is a group that’s not that far removed from a 108-point season in 2024-25, albeit one that lost two key players (Mitch Marner to free agency and Chris Tanev to injury) and had a disastrous 30-point free fall down the standings a year later.

The Leafs still have two top-line stars in Auston Matthews and William Nylander, both taken high in the draft 10 and 12 years ago, and two emerging young talents in Matthew Knies and Easton Cowan, giving the makings of a decent top-six forward group already.

Their true talent, in other words, is not that of a bottom-five team. And that’s before adding a top prospect in Gavin McKenna or Ivar Stenberg and attempting to bolster the roster elsewhere.

This is not going to be like Connor Bedard going to the Chicago Blackhawks or Macklin Celebrini to the San Jose Sharks, two markets where scorched earth rebuilds meant their No. 1 picks initially didn’t have all that much to play with, and both clubs finished with just 52 points at the bottom of the NHL standings their first seasons. Whether the Leafs select McKenna or Stenberg, both young wingers will have better players to play with.

The big question, however, is just how much of a difference a No. 1 pick can make on a team like this in Year 1?

Part of what’s interesting (and beneficial) about landing the top pick is that the player Toronto gets will be on a capped entry-level contract for their first three seasons in the NHL. The maximum a top pick can make in 2026-27 is a $1.025 million base salary, which is the only amount that has to count against the salary cap in Year 1.

Players on ELCs can then earn up to $3.5 million in additional bonuses, which No. 1 picks are typically always given on their first deals. But a big chunk of those bonuses can be difficult to attain in Year 1 for players. Even those that are earned, meanwhile, can be shifted to the following season’s cap hit as an overage charge, meaning the only salary the Leafs will need to accommodate for certain next season for sure is that $1.025 million figure.

That means that if McKenna or Stenberg can step into a top-six role and produce right away, they’ll do so at an absolute bargain against a projected $104 million cap.

Let’s illustrate that with a quick examination of who the Leafs have signed for 2026-27. Here’s a look at their projected lineup, including their cap situation, with McKenna penciled in on an ELC max deal and without any free agents signed.

The number that jumps out to me initially is the nearly $24 million in cap space the Leafs will still have to spend. That’s before RFAs Maccelli and Robertson are dealt with, and it includes three goaltenders and six defensemen, not all of whom are likely to be on the roster next season.

So there’s a lot of financial flexibility there, and it comes with one of the Leafs’ bigger needs — another top-six scoring winger — likely filled by whoever they draft.

There’s also a compelling debate to be had about how this could make things easier to fill some of Toronto’s other needs, too. Perhaps by adding McKenna/Stenberg, the Leafs can more aggressively shop one of their other top forwards for help on the blue line? Or, in a more radical move, perhaps there’s an argument to covet one of the high-end defensemen available in the draft, potentially by trading back a couple spots and adding another asset?

Assuming the Leafs use the pick, however, it’s fair to ask just how big a role can be expected for such a young player on a team that aspires to make the playoffs.

Looking solely at point production for No. 1 picks, Celebrini and Bedard produced 63 and 61 points in their rookie seasons, respectively, and that was, again, playing without a lot of help on their team’s rosters. But other top picks such as Juraj Slafkovsky, Alexis Lafrenière and Jack Hughes all struggled as rookies, producing between 10 and 21 points in their rookie campaigns as they got their feet wet in the league.

Both McKenna and Stenberg probably project closer to the Bedard production profile (albeit as wingers) than the others, however. According to our prospect expert Scott Wheeler, one of McKenna’s NHL comps is Patrick Kane (who had 72 points his first season in Chicago), while Stenberg’s include Tim Stützle (who had 29 points in 53 games as a rookie).

Other potential comps Wheeler mentioned were Nikita Kucherov and Artemi Panarin for McKenna and Henrik Zetterberg for Stenberg, although none of those three were playing in the NHL in their draft-plus-one season.

While it’s fair to project that McKenna and Stenberg both will, it’s also worth noting how many stars took a little more time to reach their potential. (And McKenna, in particular, comes with questions over how ready he’ll be to make an immediate impact.)

That’s a pretty wide range of possible outcomes overall, but on balance, there are a lot of really high-impact seasons in that group of former top picks. It feels reasonable to assume these two young stars should be able to offer, at an absolute minimum, second-line production in their first NHL seasons. Adding that one player is obviously not going to be enough to change the Leafs’ fortunes entirely in 2026-27, given their other holes and issues, but it does take one thing off Chayka’s to-do list and gives him additional options to address other needs.

Plus, pivotally, whoever the Leafs draft at No. 1 is only going to improve from there, potentially becoming a top-20 player in the league while still on their entry-level deal.

It’s hard to overestimate what that could mean, whether they can retool in short order or if it takes a little bit more time. Regardless of how things go as a rookie, getting a player like this is going to make a massive impact for 2027-28 and beyond, the kind of lottery-ball bounce that can turn a franchise around.

With the way things have gone lately in Toronto, the Leafs certainly needed it.