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headline: “Bruins Could Land a Leafs First-Rounder — And the NHL’s Tanking Problem Is Bigger Than Toronto”
slug: “bruins-leafs-first-round-pick-nhl-tanking”
meta_description: “Boston holds the Leafs’ top-5-protected 2026 first-rounder with a 56% chance it conveys. The NHL tanking problem is real and it mirrors the NBA’s worst era.”
site: bostonsportsextra.com
editorial_category: Bruins
tags: [“Bruins”, “NHL Draft 2026”, “Maple Leafs”, “NHL tanking”, “Brandon Carlo trade”, “Fraser Minten”]
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The Brandon Carlo trade gets better every week.
When Boston shipped the 28-year-old defensive defenseman to Toronto at the March 2025 deadline, it got Fraser Minten and a 2026 first-round pick (top-5 protected) back. Minten has since posted 16 goals and 31 points in 70 games — a 40-point pace in his first full NHL season. The Hockey News ran a piece about how Boston had already won the trade before the pick even conveyed. That was the right call.
Now the pick might actually come, too.
After the Leafs got obliterated by Florida 6-2 on April 11, dropping their fifth straight — they fell to 32-33-14, 5th worst in the entire NHL. Two games left. And per NBC Sports Boston, Boston now holds a 56.2% chance that pick falls outside the top 5 and comes to the Bruins. Toronto has a 41.9% shot at landing a top-5 lottery slot and keeping it.
Bruins’ odds of landing Maple Leafs’ lottery pick improve: ‘We won’t tank’
For Bruins fans, this is straight-up fun. Carlo was a fine depth piece — not a building block. They traded him for a legitimate young forward who already looks like a core player, plus what could become a meaningful lottery pick in a draft headlined by Gavin McKenna. That’s not a heist, but it’s the kind of return that makes you feel good about a front office.
Where the Leafs Pick Stands Right Now
Toronto needs to finish with one of the five worst records in the NHL for the pick protection to trigger. They’re sitting at 5th worst right now, but two games remain — vs. Dallas on April 13, vs. Ottawa on April 15. Win either one and they might claw back to 6th or worse, and the pick slides out of the protected range. Which means Leafs fans are stuck in this awkward position of hoping their team loses without anyone actually trying to lose.
MLSE CEO Keith Pelley made sure to get in front of that. After firing GM Brad Treliving in late March, he was emphatic: “There is zero chance that the Toronto Maple Leafs will tank. I don’t believe in it. Ownership doesn’t believe in it.” He added: “In my opinion, that changes the integrity of sport and changes the integrity of the Toronto Maple Leafs. We will not do anything to try to get that first round pick.”
Take that at face value. The Leafs aren’t throwing games. The problem is the structure doesn’t require it.
Why the NHL’s Tanking Problem Is Getting Worse
This is not really about Toronto. The NHL’s lottery system just quietly rewards bad records, and organizations respond to incentives. The Vancouver Canucks literally traded Quinn Hughes — their franchise cornerstone — to accelerate a tank for the top pick. That’s institutionally sanctioned losing with a press release attached.
The NBA went through its version of this over a decade ago. The 76ers spent three years at 47-199 under Sam Hinkie’s “Process,” posted an NBA-record 28-game losing streak, and the league was embarrassed enough that Adam Silver called out tanking publicly in 2014. By 2019, the NBA reformed its lottery to equalize odds for the three worst teams — softening the incentive without eliminating it. Now in 2026, the league is debating far more aggressive reform: an 18-team lottery, equal odds for the bottom 10, a Board of Governors vote on May 28.
The NHL is nowhere close to that conversation. They’ve watched the “Tank Hard for Bedard” cycle play out in 2022-23, watched Vancouver dismantle itself openly, and done nothing structurally. The weighted lottery still rewards losing, just imperfectly enough that it doesn’t fully fix the problem.
Boston might benefit from that broken system this spring. If the pick conveys and the Bruins draft well, it’s a genuine shot in the arm for a rebuild. That’s worth rooting for. But the sport deserves better than a system that turns the final two weeks of April into a quiet root-for-failure exercise — whether Pelley admits it’s happening or not.