The Toronto Maple Leafs may have landed a sneaky one with the No. 69 pick in the 2026 NHL draft.
Ethan MacKenzie wasn’t a name that had been circling the draft spotlight for long, but the Leafs took him after a breakout season and a Team Canada run at the World Juniors. At 19, with a December birthday that will make him 20 before long, he already looks like a player whose stock finally caught up to his development.
MacKenzie is a University of North Dakota commit and is set to play his first full season in college hockey after closing out his junior career with the Edmonton Oil Kings. Last season, he put up 22 goals and 36 assists for 58 points, a huge jump from where he’d been in the years before.
That climb matters because MacKenzie went undrafted in each of the previous two drafts. His path was slowed by injuries, and the production didn’t really start to pop until 2024-25, when he posted five goals and 27 assists for 32 points in 54 games. Then came the real breakout: 22 goals, 36 assists and 58 points in 59 games this past season, along with a spot on Team Canada at the World Juniors.
His tournament numbers were modest - one goal and four assists in seven games - but he was used in bottom-pair minutes and still got the chance to show he could handle that stage. The bigger story was how much his game grew over the course of the year. His shot took a major step forward, his playmaking kept improving and he stayed responsible in his own zone.
There’s also a familiar connection here. MacKenzie spent time as a linemate with Ben Danford, another Maple Leafs prospect, and the two worked well together during the World Juniors. Danford was part of the Toronto Marlies’ Calder Cup run at the tournament this past season, and the pairing looked strong enough that it may have helped MacKenzie’s case in Toronto.
Danford, a right-shot defenseman, is the bigger player at 6-foot-2 and 194 pounds. He posted three goals and 17 assists for 20 points in 45 games, and his calling card remains his defense rather than offense. MacKenzie, listed at 6-foot-1 and 187 pounds, brings more puck-moving ability and more offense from the back end, with a shot and passing game that both took clear steps forward.
That doesn’t mean one is automatically the better prospect than the other. It does mean they offer different looks, and that contrast is part of what makes the fit interesting. MacKenzie’s offense and Danford’s size and defensive game give the Leafs two blue-line prospects with different strengths, and they could be players Toronto imagines together down the line.
There’s even a case that MacKenzie may be closer to pro-ready than some players drafted ahead of him, simply because he’s older and more developed. For a player who was passed over twice, that kind of rise is exactly what makes him one of the more intriguing names in the Leafs’ draft class.
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