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TORONTO, ONTARIO - MAY 4: (L-R) Mats Sundin, Senior Executive Advisor of Hockey Operations, Keith Pelley, President and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, and John Chayka, General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs pose for a photo at a press conference announcing Sundin and Chayka at Real Sports Bar & Grill on May 4, 2026 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Michael Chisholm/Getty Images)

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in interesting times as they enter the 2026 NHL Draft with the No. 1 overall pick.

On one end of the spectrum, the Leafs are expected to land Gavin McKenna with the top pick in the NHL Draft. McKenna is widely regarded as the next big-time superstar in the NHL, with many raving about his offensive skill set. The 18-year-old forward tore up the WHL with 129 points in 56 games and starred at Penn State during the 2025-26 season, recording 51 points in 35 games played.

While that in itself is a positive, the negative is is that the Leafs are coming off of their worst season in the past decade, missing the playoffs for the first time since the 2015-16 season. The last time Toronto selected No. 1 overall was when they picked Auston Matthews with the top pick in the 2016 NHL Draft.

Brooks Laich, a former longtime NHL veteran who spent the 2015-16 season with the Leafs and grew up a Toronto fan, said the Leafs are in a weird position where there isn’t a clear direction with the franchise. He notes how the team still has the core with Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares from their playoff days, but there’s no real clear path for them to contend, even with the addition of McKenna.

“You can’t trade them now, or can you,” said Laich in a one-on-one interview, referring to the Leafs’ core veterans. “The hard thing to do is to trade them now to retool and load the cabinet behind McKenna, or whoever you draft at number one. How do you tell your fan base we’re trading our two or three best players to reload to give up on this decade of hockey? Matthews was supposed to be the guy, Nylander, (Mitch) Marner, the big four with Tavares. They haven’t won since ’67 right? They’re now at almost 60 years, where they haven’t won a Stanley Cup.”

Why Maple Leafs Have Uncertain Direction With No. 1 Overall Pick in 2026 NHL Draft

Mitch Marner is now obviously with the Las Vegas Golden Knights, helping lead them to the Stanley Cup Finals in his first season with the team. However, the core four was supposed to lead the Leafs to prominence. Instead, they fizzled in their time together, failing to lead the Leafs past the second round and suffering heartbreak after heartbreak in the postseason.

Matthews is still the face of the franchise and is under contract through the next two seasons. Meanwhile, Nylander is signed through the 2031-32 season and Tavares is under his deal through the 2028-29 season with a no-trade clause.

Trading any of those guys would mean the Leafs are heading in a rebuild around McKenna, which is a hard sell to the fan base, said Laich. The former 15-year NHL veteran said the Leafs aren’t in a spot where they can win now, regardless of the moves they make.

“The Matthews generation was supposed to be the one that breaks it, and if you trade those players now to retool around a number one pick, you’re giving up on this decade, looking forward to the next,” said Laich. “That’s a hard sell to your fan base. They’re in a really tough spot. You can’t win now, and it are is the wave that’s coming gonna come fast enough to support the guys that are here now that only have a year or two left on their contract in Matthews.”

It’ll be interesting to see what the Leafs do if they select McKenna No. 1 overall and if they retain their entire main core. With a new regime in new general manager John Chayka and senior executive adviser (and Leafs great) Mats Sundin, only time will tell which direction Toronto is heading into.

Brooks Laich Details Post-NHL Career Business Venture, World Playground

Laich is obviously well-known for his long NHL career, playing alongside Alex Ovechkin for many years and was one of the biggest fan favorites of the franchise when he was traded to the Leafs midway through the 2015-16 season.

However, the 42-year-old has now been retired for several years, having last played in an NHL game during the 2017-18 season.

Laich is now a successful entrepreneur and businessman, concentrating his efforts on the travel industry. The Saskatchewan native has started up his own online travel booking platform in World Playground, with the purpose of the new startup being to prioritize people over profit.

The whole idea stems from the fact that Laich had noticed over the years the ridiculous amount of fees and extra charges being imposed on customers for their travel experiences.

“World Playground is a travel booking platform that makes the world more affordable for everybody, so our platform removes all commissions and markups from travel products that have done nothing but increase prices on travelers for the last three decades,” Laich details. “Our mission is to get you and every other traveler to your next unforgettable memory. We want to be the best in the entire world at connecting a traveler to their next memory, and a byproduct of that is just removing any unnecessary commission and markup from any travel product or service, so it’s a booking platform where people can book their next trip.

“It’s free for everybody in the world to use, and it makes the price of that travel product, whether it’s a cruise, a hotel, travel insurance, we’re integrating flights as we speak,” Laich continued. “It makes the price of that travel product as affordable as humanly possible. The best price that we get it for, we pass that straight through to you without any added markup.”

Laich has traveled all over the world and he feels everyone else should get to experience the same thing. As a former NHL player, he was obviously able to enjoy those experiences without really having to pay for it. The normal person doesn’t enjoy that luxury. Laich details how the typical travel booking platform charges up to 18.36% in added-on fees, something that isn’t even a factor when booking through World Playground.

“Our latest calculation brings it at 18.36% so every booking that was made on our website, the price of the hotel gives us for a hotel room, and we’re a travel agency, so we get a lower price than what you, the public, would get,” said Laich. “In other booking platforms, add that commission to sell it at the public price, we get the price from the hotel, and we pass it straight through to you without ever adding a single cent of commission to it, so you are now paying on our website travel agent prices on 2.2 million hotels around the world for free.

“We do not charge to use our site,” Laich continued. “When we launched our platform, we said we’re going to keep track of every single booking on World Playground and price compare it directly to the next lowest price we find anywhere online, whether that’s booking direct with a hotel, whether that’s on Expedia or booking.com or hotels.com or any other booking agent. On average we track this until it got away from us, because there’s too many bookings we couldn’t keep up anymore. On average, that number was 18.36%.”

Laich detailed that World Playground is unique in that they are the first company that doesn’t add a single cent of commission to the consumer.

“We are the first company in the world to take the prices that we receive, never add a single cent of commission and pass them through to you, the traveler, at no additional cost to you,” said Laich. “The reason we started this is to make that change in the industry that no traveler ever again had to pay a commission on a travel product that they booked for themselves, so we want to change the industry to remove the profiting off of the traveler.

“We put a flag in the ground on March 16 when we launched and said no traveler ever again has to pay commission on a travel product as long as they book on World Playground,” Laich continued. “That’s our pledge to our community, we’ll never charge or keep a single cent of commission for any travel service or product booked on our website.”