Flyers Set to Benefit from Maple Leafs NHL Draft Lottery Win

Thanks to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Philadelphia Flyers are positioned nicely to add another extremely talented young player to their cupboard in the near future. On Tuesday night, the Maple Leafs, perhaps unsurprisingly, won the NHL draft lottery outright, securing themselves the No. 1 overall pick and the rights to draft Gavin McKenna after a disastrous 2025-26 season.

Toronto, we can expect, will keep the first overall pick and select McKenna or another top prospect, which also means the Maple Leafs will be giving away their first-round picks in 2027 and 2028. The Maple Leafs originally traded a conditional 2026 first-round pick to the Boston Bruins for Brandon Carlo, with the conditions being top-five protection. Because the Maple Leafs won the first pick, that 2026 first-round pick slides to 2027.

But the Flyers received a conditional 2027 first-round pick from the Maple Leafs in the Scott Laughton trade, which is top-10 protected. So, if the 2027 first-round pick is another top-10 pick, the Maple Leafs will have to choose whether it goes to the Flyers or Bruins. Maple Leafs Coach Heaps Big Praise Upon Rising Flyers Prospect Toronto Maple Leafs head coach and former Philadelphia Flyers bench boss Craig Berube likes what he's seen from Nikita Grebenkin, one of his old players.

And he knows there's room for plenty more as Grebenkin embarks on the next chapter of his NHL career with the Flyers. The Maple Leafs and the Bruins are obviously rivals and play in the same division, and the Flyers will get the pick anyway if it is outside of the top 10. To make a long story short, the only way the Flyers don't get the Maple Leafs' 2027 first-round pick is if they decide to give a top-10 pick to their division rival.