Gavin McKenna will continue sporting blue and white.
The Toronto Maple Leafs selected the slick Whitehorse-born winger with the No. 1 pick at 2026 NHL draft Friday night. The pick was announced by Canadian pop icon and Maple Leafs fan Justin Bieber.
He becomes just the third player ever taken first overall by the Maple Leafs, joining Wendel Clark in 1985 and Auston Matthews in 2016.
McKenna is coming off a freshman season at Penn State where he put up 15 goals and 36 assists for 51 points across 35 NCAA games following a pair of dominant campaigns with the Western Hockey League’s Medicine Hat Tigers.
The 18-year-old joins an Original Six franchise coming off a disastrous 2025-26 that started with Stanley Cup aspirations before spiralling down the drain in spectacular fashion.
Toronto, which has a new head coach and general manager following a 28th-place finish, then got a terrific bounce when it won the draft lottery despite entering with odds of just 8.5 per cent.
“Gavin is an exceptional young man with tremendous talent and character,” said general manager John Chayka. “Throughout this process, we had the opportunity to get to know him and his family, and each interaction strengthened our belief in him as both a player and a person. We’re thrilled to welcome him to the Toronto Maple Leafs.”
And while the Maple Leafs were a mess last season, the club still has a talented forward group led by captain and star centre Auston Matthews — selected No. 1 overall inside the same building as Friday’s proceedings a decade ago — that’s supported by William Nylander, John Tavares and Matthew Knies.
Owners of the NHL’s longest Stanley Cup drought — one dating back to 1967 — the Maple Leafs and McKenna will now look to reload under new bench boss Jim Hiller, GM John Chayka and Mats Sundin, a franchise legend turned senior executive adviser of hockey operations.
McKenna, the top-ranked North American skater according to NHL Central Scouting, burst into the sport’s consciousness back in 2022 at age 14 with a four-assist debut in the WHL.
The phenom went on to register 34 goals and 97 points the following campaign before leading the entire Canadian Hockey League with an outrageous 129 points (41 goals, 88 assists) in 2024-25.
McKenna, who stands five foot 11 and weighs 170 pounds, could have remained in major junior for his draft year, but instead went the U.S. college route to face stiffer competition in hopes of being better prepared at the professional level.
After a period of adjustment on the ice sporting the Nittany Lions’ blue and white threads, a February altercation where McKenna allegedly broke a man’s jaw could have derailed his season.
Prosecutors in Pennsylvania, however, subsequently dropped the most serious charge of aggravated assault. McKenna, who was not suspended by Penn State and hasn’t shared his version of events publicly, still faces charges of misdemeanour simple assault, along with harassment and disorderly conduct.
