The NHL Combine is over, the Stanley Cup Final is reaching its conclusion, and the 2026-27 calendar is set to begin with the NHL Draft and free agency.

It has been 10 years since the Maple Leafs last missed the playoffs, the same year they drafted Auston Matthews first overall. While the Leafs had been stockpiling talent for a few years, drafting a true top-line center was what truly vaulted the franchise forward.

This draft is not quite the same as it was 10 years ago, but it is funny to look back on the debate about the pick at the time. After a monster playoff run in Finland, Patrik Laine was awarded the Jari Kurri Trophy as playoff MVP, and he followed it up by earning tournament MVP honours at the World Championship that spring. Corey Pronman, who was at ESPN at the time, ranked Laine No. 1, and he was not the only evaluator who was extremely high on him.

One NHL Central Scouting evaluator said before the draft:

“In my eyes, he is the one player in the draft with the biggest upside. I guess his upside is even a bit bigger than Auston Matthews’… I absolutely love Patrik Laine. He is such a bright hockey prospect in various aspects, and although I strongly believe that Matthews will go No. 1, I personally would draft Laine first overall. That means quite a lot because I’m also very high on Matthews.”

We all know how that turned out.

Now, there seems to be a similar debate surrounding the consensus top prospect, Gavin McKenna, and naturally, the parallels have been drawn.

One narrative that’s emerged is that because the Toronto Maple Leafs won the lottery, there is a media-driven effort to manufacture a debate about who should go first overall. The conventional wisdom is that the answer is clearly McKenna, who became a household name at 17 by tearing up the WHL with 129 points in just 56 games.

However, we are now seeing genuine debates about Ivar Stenberg, in particular, and perhaps a defenseman, though opinions vary on which defenseman should be considered at 1OA.

While I do believe the Leafs will ultimately select McKenna, this situation is not as cut-and-dried as it was 10 years ago.

How did we get here?

A year ago, McKenna was the clear consensus top prospect in his draft class. He ran roughshod over the WHL, including a monster 38 points in 16 playoff games as he led Medicine Hat to the Memorial Cup Final, where they lost to Easton Cowan’s London Knights.

McKenna also led Canada to the U18 World Championship gold medal game, where he scored a hat trick in the final against the United States. At the end of the season, he was named CHL Player of the Year and WHL Player of the Year, becoming the third-youngest winner of the CHL award, behind only Sidney Crosby and John Tavares.

McKenna did not just have a track record of off-the-charts production; he had demonstrated that, in critical moments, he was also a big-time player capable of rising to the occasion.

McKenna then took advantage of the new junior hockey rules and moved from the WHL to the NCAA. Instead of playing in a league where the average age was 18.3, he was now playing in the Big Ten, where the average age was closer to 21.5.

While he was still productive, McKenna’s numbers were much more modest than what scouts had become accustomed to. Prior to the World Juniors, he produced just 16 points in 15 games, and his game away from the puck was scrutinized more heavily as a result.

It is also fair to note that Penn State’s only other forward with significant pedigree, Charlie Cerrato (a second-round pick of Carolina in 2025), was injured for two months, and the Penn State team McKenna handpicked was not particularly strong or well-coached.

McKenna then went to the World Juniors, where he produced 14 points in seven games on what felt like Canada’s only viable line throughout the tournament. However, the team fell short overall, which did not boost his hype compared to players like Connor Bedard, Connor McDavid, and Sidney Crosby. That is not entirely McKenna’s fault, but winning helps narratives, even when players are supposed to be scouted in isolation.

At the same time, Ivar Stenberg was putting together a monster first half of his season. Playing in Sweden’s top professional league, he exploded for 22 points in 19 games.

To rewind for a second, Stenberg did not come out of nowhere, either. He represented Sweden internationally at the U16, U17, U18, and U20 levels, regularly dominating his age group. He also consistently played ahead of the curve, appearing in J20 at 16 and in SHL games by 17.

Most early mock drafts a year or more out would have classified Stenberg as a top-10 pick. He has been on this trajectory for years, and his emergence is not a surprise by any means.

As McKenna lit up the World Juniors on a Canadian team that once again fell short, Stenberg technically produced a more modest 10 points in seven games (still excellent), but he became a big-time player for Sweden in the elimination rounds. In the gold medal game in particular, he recorded three points while playing excellent two-way hockey and making an impact all over the ice.

The hype around Stenberg at that point was legitimate. For example, Sportsnet ranked Stenberg first in January and McKenna down to third long before anyone knew the Leafs would win the lottery (they were actually one point outside the playoffs at the time of that ranking, believe it or not).

A second-half resurgence

In the second half of the season, McKenna and Stenberg’s campaigns somewhat flipped.

Stenberg produced just 11 points over his final 24 SHL games. Conversely, after the World Juniors, McKenna’s game took off as he recorded 35 points in 20 games. In McKenna’s case, though, it was not just the production that was encouraging — it was the signs of some improvement away from the puck and in his overall engagement.

This note from Emily Kaplan was particularly interesting in relation to that improvement:

“In the second half of the season, McKenna arranged weekly video calls with his representation team at CAA: one of his agents, Matt Williams, former NHL player Byron Ritchie, and Jim Hughes (father of Jack and Quinn), who works in player development. They’d go over every shift from the previous weekend and discuss: What did you see on that play? What could you have done?”

By the end of the season, McKenna tied for fifth in the NCAA with 51 points (15 goals, 36 assists) and ranked second in points per game at 1.46 in 35 games, despite being the sixth-youngest player in men’s college hockey. It was one of the most impressive pre-draft seasons in NCAA history.

At the same time, the same could be said for Stenberg. Even though his production declined in the second half, he still posted one of the greatest U18 seasons in the history of the SHL.

Every player Stenberg is sandwiched between on that list turned into a bona fide NHL star.

When his season ended, Stenberg went on to play at the World Championship, where he recorded eight points in eight games and played extremely well. Conversely, McKenna elected not to attend. While it would have been interesting to see the two in the same tournament one final time, it is not really a fair comparison.

Stenberg played on a Swedish team where roughly half of the forward group did not play in the NHL, and even some of the NHLers were bit players, such as Carl Grundström. As a result, he played on the top line, received top power-play minutes, and was given a major offensive role.

McKenna, on the other hand, would have been joining a Canadian team made entirely of NHL players, including Sidney Crosby, Macklin Celebrini, Robert Thomas, John Tavares, Mark Scheifele, and more. Even if he played well, Canada was not going to sit veterans who had committed after their NHL seasons ended.

As much as I would have liked to see McKenna in that environment, I tend to agree with his decision to stay home and train. It was likely the best thing for his development at that point, and his strong showing at the NHL Combine confirmed he was well prepared.

The World Juniors and World Championship are fun tournaments, but they are events where you need to be careful not to overreact in your evaluations.

In 2019, Kaapo Kakko won the World Championship in the same calendar year that he won U18 gold and World Junior gold. He scored six goals in 10 games for Finland at the World Championship, including some impressive goals against NHL competition. Seven years after he was drafted second overall, Kakko still has not reached the 20-goal mark in a season, and his career high in points is 44.

The Pick

On paper, both McKenna and Stenberg are excellent prospects. While they developed on opposite sides of the Atlantic, both produced elite scoring profiles for their age and respective leagues.

Some of the public models have them rated essentially neck and neck:

McKenna is the more skilled, offensive player with the higher ceiling, while Stenberg projects as the more complete, higher-floor option who still carries legitimate star potential.

But the purpose of the draft is to build value within your organization, not simply to fill immediate roster needs on your current team. That is why teams typically select the best player available, especially given that NHL draft picks often take years to develop, if they ever fully materialize.

This is not the NFL or NBA, where you can draft for need and plug players directly into your lineup. In the NHL, you need to accumulate as much talent as possible through the draft and then build your roster around it over time.

Because McKenna has the higher ceiling, the central question is whether you believe in him. At the high end, his talent has been compared to players like Patrick Kane and Nikita Kucherov. Kane has more than 400 points than the next-highest scorer in his draft class and added 138 playoff points in 143 playoff games, along with three Stanley Cups. Kucherov similarly has 200+ points more than the next-closest player in his class, and he has produced 21 more playoff points than any other player in the league since he entered it.

If you believe McKenna can genuinely reach that tier, there is essentially no debate. Players like that lap the field and separate themselves from their draft class by a large margin.

Even Artemi Panarin’s name has been brought into the discussion — he went undrafted, but among his class (2010), he has 128 more points than anyone else, despite arriving in the NHL later in his career.

On the other hand, there are legitimate concerns about McKenna’s game, particularly around engagement and defensive play. While it is often said these traits can be taught — and that is true — some players never fully figure it out. For all his talent, William Nylander is often cited as an example of a player who never consistently developed that side of the game.

When it comes to Stenberg, this is not a low-ceiling, middle-six projection. He is one of the most productive U18 SHL players ever and already looks physically capable of handling pro hockey. It is not difficult to envision him fitting into a top-line role alongside a player like Nylander much more seamlessly than McKenna, at least in the short term.

Ultimately, I expect the Leafs to select McKenna, but I also believe Stenberg is very much the real deal and worthy of the pick/discussion.

Notes

– Caution should be exercised around reading too much into these things, but McKenna’s combine stood out. He was not only prepared for the testing but also polished and articulate in his media availability. That is not insignificant in a market like Toronto.

More than once, he noted that the Leafs were in a unique position to compete for a playoff spot immediately. He is not heading to a rebuilding team like the Vancouver Canucks, and you can tell he is motivated by the idea of competing right away.

– We did not cover other prospects in this piece, but a few others deserve mention. The Leafs released three prospect interview videos; the first two players are obvious, while the third is Chase Reid. Many scouts reportedly view him as the top defenseman in the class — a 6-foot-3 right-shot defender with strong mobility and offensive instincts is highly tantalizing.

Reid’s production, however, was not overwhelming, with 48 points in 45 games. That is still quite strong, but for comparison, Evan Bouchard posted 25 goals and 87 points in 67 games, leading all CHL defensemen in scoring, with the second-highest player on his team finishing at 54 points.

There is a counter-argument to Reid’s production concerns, which you can explore here:

If Reid’s career lands somewhere between those outcomes — say, between Evan Bouchard and Rasmus Andersson — it’s not entirely appealing to me at first overall. Selecting him 1OA would require significant conviction that he’s a true stud RHD.

– One player not interviewed by the Leafs was Caleb Malhotra, widely viewed as the top center in the draft. Centers are the most difficult asset to acquire in hockey, and teams always pay a premium for them. Malhotra is also 6-foot-2 and produced 84 points in 67 games.

Again, if you think McKenna is the next Kane or Kucherov-type player, there’s no real discussion. If you are uncertain, drafting a franchise cornerstone down the middle has a real appeal.

One concern about Malhotra is his previous BCHL season, where he recorded just 26 points in 44 games. For context, Mark Scheifele produced more in the GOJHL before his one-year-wonder draft season in the OHL, which eventually saw him selected seventh overall. At the time, that pick was considered a reach — today, Scheifele is the second-highest scorer from his draft class, behind Kucherov.

You would at least need to ponder it, depending on how you feel about the top two wingers.

– Outside of the top two wingers, most of the remaining prospects likely require additional development time outside the NHL. You should not draft based on immediate readiness, but there is the reality of the scrutiny and pressure placed on a first-overall selection. If that player is not immediately in the NHL while others selected later step in and produce, it can make for a very long year — especially for a team that has already traded away future picks. That is more of a comment on the system as a whole, but a situation like that can become very noisy with criticism, very quickly.

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