On Monday, the Toronto Maple Leafs had one of the strangest, most unsettling days in recent memory.

On Tuesday, they won the draft lottery.

To say this changes everything would be a stretch. To say it changes a lot, though, feels about right.

The Leafs, led by their controversial new front office of John Chayka and Mats Sundin, badly needed something (anything!) to go right. This was it. The chance to select first at the draft for the first time in 10 years — since Auston Matthews went No. 1 in 2016 — is obviously huge for the organization, beginning with the effect that it might just have on Matthews’ desire to stay.

Matthews wants to compete for a Stanley Cup. If he’s going to be swayed into sticking around Toronto for at least another season, he needs to see a roster that offers him the chance to do that. Which means a roster that greatly improves this summer.

Likely No. 1 pick Gavin McKenna is a huge start.

McKenna (or Ivar Stenberg) would offer the Leafs the high-powered playmaking winger they missed, badly, last season after Mitch Marner went to Vegas last summer and wasn’t replaced. He won’t be Marner right away, obviously, but he will be a giant upgrade in talent on what Matthews had on his line last season, if they end up playing together. The captain’s most frequent linemates were Max Domi, Matthew Knies and Bobby McMann.

Finding that kind of impact winger otherwise this offseason would have been almost impossible. There are too many other needs to address, for one thing, and no one, literally, in free agency with that kind of capability. The best they might have done was an aging vet such as Patrick Kane or Claude Giroux, if those guys even made it to free agency.

The top of the Leafs’ forward group suddenly looks a lot more intriguing with McKenna potentially in the mix:

McKenna — Matthews — ?
Knies — ? — Nylander
? — Tavares — Cowan

Retooling this offseason doesn’t become easy now with this pick, but it’s easier than it would have been otherwise with the injection of the best young talent the team has added at the draft since Matthews.

Adding the No. 1 pick (McKenna or otherwise) is bigger than that, though. It offers the organization a new cornerstone, someone to build around with Matthews — or without him, whether that’s now or down the line. The pick offers both hope and flexibility that way.

Were Matthews to look around at what Chayka has done with the roster (and head coach, potentially) in mid-July, not like what he sees and suggest a trade, the Leafs wouldn’t be in a good position. But they wouldn’t be without hope now, either. The rebuild, if that did end up becoming the inevitable path, would have a major starting point.

Adding McKenna also gives the Leafs an additional path to improving the roster this offseason. Suddenly trading Knies for help elsewhere becomes a lot more palatable with another younger, higher-upside winger joining the roster, perhaps in his place. In theory, the Leafs could draft McKenna with the top pick and then deal Knies (and other assets) for an impact defenceman. Or they could draft McKenna, keep Knies and try to locate that upgrade on defence through other means.

Does this solve everything? No. One pick won’t save the Leafs that way. Chayka still has major holes on the roster to fill and limited means to do so. A wrong move or two can still keep this team tumbling in the wrong direction. So could the impending decision on head coach Craig Berube.

How much better the Leafs become next season will depend on a lot of things that way. What Matthews decides. What moves the front office makes to improve in key positions. Who is coaching the team. How good McKenna (or Stenberg or even defenceman Chase Reid) is as a teenage rookie.

Even if a Cup remains out of reach, a positive season could convince Matthews to sign a contract extension as soon as next summer. The prospect of morphing back into Cup contenders, sooner rather than later, becomes that much more likely with this pick in the mix.

There is a cost to holding on to the selection, of course. The Leafs will now surrender their 2027 and 2028 first-round picks — unprotected — to the Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins via the Scott Laughton and Brandon Carlo trades.

But that’s much easier to digest now with the 2026 No. 1 pick on board. Nor do those surrendered picks feel quite as foreboding, either, as they did when the week began.