How Macklin Celebrini has revitalized the Sharks

The future is teal, indeed

The 2023-24 season was a miserable one for the Sharks.

They committed to an unrepentant tank job, trading defending Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson, among other moves. The Sharks’ top four scorers from the 2022-23 season — a team that was the fourth-worst in the league already — either found new teams or, in Logan Couture’s case, ended up on long-term injured reserve by the end of the 2023-24 season.

The results were ugly. The Sharks finished last in the league by five points after registering just 47 points and ended the year with a minus-150 goal differential. They managed to out-tank the McDavid draft Buffalo Sabres by seven points.

But unlike those Sabres, they managed to win the lottery, giving them a new face of the franchise in Macklin Celebrini. The Boston University product was the first No. 1 pick to win the Hobey Baker Award, college hockey’s Heisman Trophy, but he didn’t have quite the same amount of hype as Connor Bedard the previous year. However, Celebrini has made the Sharks worth watching on a nightly basis while instilling hope within the fanbase, something that hasn’t happened since the Sharks last made the playoffs in 2019.

Starting from the bottom

It cannot be overstated just how dire the Sharks’ situation was heading into the 2024-25 season. They weren’t just the worst team in the league; they were arguably the worst team since the 2005-06 lockout. Even after winning the first overall pick, there was a lot of work to do.

The Sharks had an expected goals percentage (xGF%) of 40.7% at five-on-five last season, according to Evolving-Hockey. Not only was that the worst in the NHL, it was the third-lowest mark in the site’s database, which dates back to the 2007-08 season.

A year later, that number is up to 43%, which is still dead last in the league. But this is a young Sharks team that has greatly improved over the course of the year, even while they continue to rebuild by jettisoning producing veterans like Mikael Granlund, Jake Walman and Mackenzie Blackwood. Since the start of February, the Sharks are actually 14th in xGF%, per Natural Stat Trick, at 50.6%, though their numbers have tailed off since their already thin blueline got even thinner after Walman, their sole puck-moving defenseman, was dealt.

Celebrini has been a big reason why the Sharks are merely bad this year instead of historically bad once again. Celebrini had 53 points in 61 games and solid underlying numbers ahead of Tuesday’s game. He’s doing this while being an 18-year-old with a summer birthday (he won’t turn 19 until June) on the league’s worst team.

With him off the ice, the numbers have been ugly — there’s a reason why the Sharks went 3-8-1 when he was sidelined early in the season. Celebrini has held his own at five-on-five relative to the rest of the team (48% xGF%) and has only been outscored 51-36, despite a low PDO of 96.4 (100 is average). With Celebrini off the ice, the Sharks have an xGF% of 42.8% at five-on-five with a goal differential of minus-39.

That won’t grab the attention of national media and Calder Trophy voters quite like Montreal’s Lane Hutson and Calgary’s Dustin Wolf trying to push their respective teams in the playoffs, but it goes to show how impressive Celebrini’s rookie season has been. Even after adding some offensive firepower from Tyler Toffoli via free agency and youngsters like Will Smith and William Eklund leveling up, the Sharks are still relying on Celebrini to be their offensive pulse and drive play.

Passing the eye test

The thing about watching Macklin Celebrini is that something is always happening when he’s on the ice. He plays with what can really only be described as Gen Z energy. We’re talking about a player who scored his first NHL goal via a spin-o-rama pass into the slot that deflected off a defender and into the net mere minutes into his NHL debut.

Celebrini has played with Eklund the most this year, and it’s not a coincidence that those two have fired the most high-danger passes per 60 minutes for the Sharks this season, according to Corey Sznajder at All Three Zones. That combination has created must-watch hockey. When those two are on the ice, the Sharks are cooking with a 52% xGF%, but without, it’s an ugly 41.8%. Hockey players preach about getting pucks to the net, and that’s exactly what those two do.

But with Celebrini, a lot of times it’s the little stuff, and that stands out because of the general state of the Sharks’ roster. Pretty much everything has been a struggle for San Jose, and one of its many problems has been zone entries. The Sharks struggle to enter the zone, let alone with possession. But Celebrini is already a get-out-jail-free card for the Sharks.

This goal comes off the power play, but it still shows how valuable Celebrini’s ability to enter the zone cleanly with possession is. He doesn’t get a point for this goal (another reason why we shouldn’t take points as gospel, but that’s a different subject), but this goal doesn’t happen without him.

Celebrini also has a pretty high motor. The defensive impacts aren’t there yet, but you can always see him working hard to win the puck back. He’s not afraid to go into the dirty areas, and that also leads to good things for the Sharks. Celebrini picked up a secondary assist on this one, and it’s the effort that makes it happen.

All Three Zones’ data shows a lot of what makes Celebrini so successful. He’s already a menace in the attacking zone and helps facilitate play between the offensive and defensive ends.

Celebrini is figuring out what does and doesn’t work at the NHL level. With a better team and some better puck luck (his on-ice shooting percentage at five-on-five is currently below eight percent), he’ll be a nightmare for opposing teams for a long time.

New era in San Jose

The Sharks’ tagline this season has been “The future is teal,” and between Celebrini and one of the best farm systems in the league (if not the best), they certainly seem likely to live up the billing. There’s still a lot of work to do in San Jose — there’s a reason why the Sharks are still in the league’s basement — especially on the defensive side.

But the Sharks have also done a great job of letting their kids just be kids. That Celebrini, Smith and co. seemingly show up to the rink with the same youthful exuberance for Game 63 that they did for Game 1 goes to show what kind of atmosphere they’ve been working with. That may change when there’s finally pressure to win some games, but it’s clear that the focus has been on getting the young core comfortable with the day-to-day grind of playing in the NHL.

The laidback approach that feels perfectly suited for northern California has had plenty of upside, too. Sharks hockey finally feels like it matters again after years of purgatory followed up by a painful rebuild. Fans in San Jose can finally root for wins again instead of stressfully checking Tankathon to see if a win might have knocked them out of the top lottery spot. Granted, they might still win the lottrey again this year, but the Sharks no longer need a franchise centerpiece now that they have Celebrini.

San Jose will most likely have vastly more successful seasons in the future, but there’s a special kind of innocence around this group. There’s a reason why, following a shootout win over Toronto, longtime Sharks play-by-play announcer Randy Hahn said that this is, “The most fun last-place team you will ever see.”