Hlinka Gretzky Cup 2026 Opens: Toronto's 2027 Draft Board Starts Here

Hlinka Gretzky Cup 2026 opens in Edmonton with Toronto's next draft board on the ice

The Hlinka Gretzky Cup 2026 drops its first puck today at Rogers Place in Edmonton, and for the Toronto Maple Leafs it is the unofficial start of a scouting year that matters more than most. Eight nations, six days, and a Canadian roster stacked with players who will hear their names called at the 2027 NHL Draft. Toronto used the No. 1 pick in 2026 on Gavin McKenna. The next pick the organization spends in the first round could come with a Colorado logo attached to it, and the evaluation work behind that pick begins this week.

The tournament runs Aug. 3-8, split between Rogers Place and the Downtown Community Arena. Canada opens against Switzerland at 5 p.m. MT after the United States — the defending champion — faces Czechia at 1 p.m. MT. It is the most concentrated look anyone gets at the top of a draft class this early, and every NHL club sends people.

The format, the field and the schedule

Group A is Canada, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland. Group B is Czechia, Finland, Germany and the United States, who won the 2025 edition. Canada plays Switzerland on Aug. 3, Slovakia on Aug. 4 and Sweden on Aug. 5 to close the preliminary round. Semifinals go Aug. 7, with the bronze and gold medal games on Aug. 8 at noon and 5 p.m. MT.

Canada's roster is 22 players — two goaltenders, seven defencemen and 13 forwards. Nine come from the WHL, eight from the OHL and five from the QMJHL, with 18 different CHL clubs represented. The Kingston Frontenacs, Newfoundland Regiment, Prince Albert Raiders and Regina Pats each sent two players. Ryan Oulahen runs the bench, with Ryan McDonald, Brad MacKenzie and Kyle Chipchura on staff.

The split that matters for scouts: 16 of Canada's 22 are eligible for the 2027 draft, and six more are a year behind that, pointed at 2028. That mix is normal for this event and it is why the tournament is treated as a first read rather than a verdict. Players who dominate here at 17 sometimes stall; players who look ordinary sometimes add 15 pounds and a step by Christmas.

Landon DuPont is the headliner, and the reason 2027 matters

Landon DuPont is the projected first-overall prospect for the 2027 draft. He is the first defenceman ever granted exceptional-player status in the WHL, he starred for the Everett Silvertips, and he is headed to the University of Michigan for the coming season. He chose to stay with his own age group here rather than push for a spot at Canada's World Junior Summer Showcase, which tells you something about how Hockey Canada is sequencing him.

DuPont is not the only name worth tracking. Alexis Joseph is the top QMJHL prospect on the roster. Maddox Schultz and Liam Pue, both born in 2010, are already considered among the best prospects available for the 2028 draft — the kind of players who show up at this tournament a year early and leave with a reputation.

For a Toronto fan base that spent the spring watching a rebuild-adjacent teardown, the relevant point is simple. A draft class headlined by a right-shot-quality defenceman with exceptional status is exactly the class you want to have picks in if your blue line is aging. Toronto's is.

Why the Maple Leafs' 2027 draft capital is unusual

John Chayka has been aggressive with picks in both directions since taking over in May, and the 2027 column is the strangest one on the ledger. Toronto sent a 2027 fifth-round pick to Ottawa in the Samuel Ersson deal and a 2027 fourth-rounder to Tampa Bay in the Nick Paul trade. Those are rounding errors.

The asset that matters came from the March deadline, before Chayka arrived: Toronto traded Nicolas Roy to Colorado for a conditional 2027 first-round pick and a conditional 2026 fifth. The condition is the interesting part. If Colorado's 2027 first lands in the top 10, the Avalanche instead send their unprotected 2028 first-round pick to Toronto. In other words, the Leafs are guaranteed a first-round pick out of that trade; the only open question is which year and how good.

Roy, remember, was the centrepiece of the return in the Mitch Marner trade with Vegas the previous summer. That is the full chain: Marner became Roy, and Roy became a first-round pick that will be scouted starting this week.

Dan Palango's first real audition

Toronto announced three front office hires last week as part of Chayka's rebuild of the scouting and analytics departments — Dan Palango as director of amateur scouting, Brad Rossen as vice-president of research and development, and JP Perpich on the U.S. scouting side. We covered the reshuffle in detail in our look at the Maple Leafs' front office hires under Chayka.

The Hlinka Gretzky Cup is the first live event where a new amateur scouting director's fingerprints start to matter. The list of who gets sent, how many staff attend, which viewings get prioritized — those are department-culture decisions, and they compound. A club that lands on a 2027 sleeper in August has ten months of runway to build conviction before draft day.

It is worth being honest about what this event does and does not settle. Nobody drafts off Hlinka. But the scouts who end up right in June often trace their conviction to a specific shift in a preliminary-round game in early August.

What Toronto should actually be scouting

Three things, in order.

• Right-shot defencemen who can transition the puck. Toronto's blue line is old and left-heavy, and the organization has been paying premium prices for veterans to paper over it. Darren Raddysh's contract is the most expensive version of that patch. The cheap version is drafting one.
• Centres who defend. Chayka spent the summer buying bottom-six centre depth at market rates. Producing that internally is how a cap-strapped team stays flexible.
• Goaltenders, quietly. Toronto's crease is set for now, but the pipeline behind it thinned out this summer.

The tournament also functions as an early read on which national programs are trending. The United States has won this event recently and keeps producing forwards who arrive NHL-ready out of the NCAA. Sweden and Finland send defencemen who scouts tend to undervalue in August and overvalue by April.

The McKenna context

None of this diminishes what Toronto already has. McKenna signed his three-year entry-level deal in July with the maximum $3.225-million base salary allowed under the CBA, plus Schedule A and Schedule B bonus structure — a contract that is simultaneously the Leafs' best cap asset and a bonus-overage risk, which we broke down in our piece on McKenna's entry-level contract. His fall runway is still being sorted, including whether he takes part in the rookie tournament.

The point of watching Edmonton this week is that a franchise cannot draft first overall every year, and Toronto will not be picking in that neighbourhood again if the 2026-27 roster does what it is built to do. Picks acquired from other teams — like Colorado's — become the pipeline. Scouting them well is the difference between a rebuild that lasts two years and one that lasts six.

What's next

Canada plays Slovakia on Aug. 4 and Sweden on Aug. 5. If the group holds to form, a Canada-United States final on Aug. 8 is the likeliest outcome, and it would be the first extended look at the 2027 class's top end against real competition.

After that, the junior calendar goes quiet until CHL and NCAA training camps in September, which is also when Toronto's own prospects resurface. Follow the full picture on our draft hub and track the current roster on the players page.