Gavin McKenna is projected to be the No. 1 pick in the NHL Draft, and when his name is called in Buffalo, N.Y., on Friday night, he will embrace his family, receive cheers from the sold-out crowd and shake hands with league commissioner Gary Bettman. But for the star left winger, meeting the group that’s actually selecting him, the front office of the Toronto Maple Leafs, will have to wait.
That’s because the NHL switched its draft to a decentralized format last year. The league used to have decision-makers and other personnel from all 32 of its teams gather on the floor of wherever the marquee offseason event was held, which NHL president of content and events Steve Mayer called a “who’s who of hockey.”
Now, the franchises run their draft operations remotely from their home cities, similar to how it’s done in the NFL, the NBA and MLB.
Teams were eager for a change, finding the travel burdensome and the schedule too hectic to focus on roster preparations, with the league’s awards ceremony, the end of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the start of free agency unfolding in a few weeks’ time. Having competing franchises all in the same room also raised privacy issues, and Mayer said there were discussions on how potential moves could be visually tipped off. So after conducting a vote with its general managers, who polled their respective organizations, the NHL opted to shake the event up.
But shifting the format didn’t necessarily make things easier. While travel expenses went down for the individual franchises, the decentralized draft costs the NHL more, largely because of how technologically intensive it is. In addition to year-over-year improvements in presentation, the league has to manage broadcast feeds from 32 different locations, transmit data back and forth, and coordinate trades and selections, all in real time.
And Mayer isn’t shy to admit the NHL didn’t get everything right in the first year of decentralization. During the 2025 draft, the league had selected prospects proceed into a “Hockey House,” which had giant LED screens so they could immediately talk to their new teams. Yet it proved to be hit-or-miss as to whether the content was compelling, and it came with a bunch of tech issues. So the NHL scrapped it for this year.
The league also vastly underestimated how much space it needed for the event, even without the teams present, moving from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles in 2025 to KeyBank Center in Buffalo, where the Sabres play, for this draft.
Difficulties aside, Mayer has “zero concerns” about how the draft will play out this year. In fact, he’s extremely bullish on the atmosphere since Buffalo is geographically close to Toronto, which holds the top overall pick for the first time since the Maple Leafs drafted Auston Matthews in 2016. “It is going to be a pretty big moment for sure,” he said.
Mayer acknowledges the NHL player-selection event doesn’t match its NFL counterpart, but then, what does? “It’s hard to compare the NFL,” Mayer said. “I mean, that’s another level, but I put our draft absolutely up against any of the other drafts from the other major leagues for sure.”
As it is, the NHL’s event is generating plenty of commercial opportunities. The league has consistently been adding more elements, such as additional signage and screens, produced player profiles and celebrity activations, giving “our sponsorship team many, many more opportunities to sell,” he added.
The overall growth of the hockey draft has made it more attractive and beneficial to partners, like Upper Deck, which holds the title sponsorship for the event.
“The draft that used to be a business meeting is no longer a business meeting,” Mayer said. “It’s a spectacle, it’s an event, it’s a very sellable item, not only to the spectators in Buffalo, but people that watch it around the world and around the globe and especially for us in North America.”
