{"id":537446,"date":"2026-03-15T06:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T06:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/537446\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T06:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T06:18:07","slug":"san-jose-sharks-superstar-macklin-celebrini-burns-montreal-canadiens-for-second-time-in-under-two-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/537446\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks superstar Macklin Celebrini burns Montreal Canadiens for second time in under two weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 The Montreal Canadiens<\/a> will be happy not to see Macklin Celebrini<\/a> again this season, barring an unlikely Stanley Cup final.<\/p>\n

Less than two weeks after the San Jose Sharks<\/a> superstar produced one goal and three assists against the Canadiens, Celebrini struck again with three points in a 4-2 victory in Montreal on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best players in the game find ways to create offence, find ways to impact games in different ways,\u201d head coach Ryan Warsofsky said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen that all year long from Mack. The world saw it in the Olympics. But when he gets going, and you could tell he had his legs tonight, he gets going and he wants to make things happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what type of player he is. He\u2019s ultra competitive, he\u2019s a gamer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only 19, Celebrini has already established himself as one of the NHL\u2019s top players in just his second season, especially after putting up 10 points for Canada at the Milan Cortina Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s tough to gap up on,\u201d Canadiens defenceman Kaiden Guhle<\/a> said. \u201cHe\u2019s a really smart player. He\u2019s got speed, hands, shot, good vision, he\u2019s a good player. There\u2019s a reason he was with the team playing with those top players.\u201d<\/p>\n

The North Vancouver, B.C., product raised his season totals to 35 goals and 94 points, good for fifth in NHL scoring, with two goals and an assist against Montreal. He also has the rebuilding Sharks (32-26-6) holding the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference with fewer than 20 games left in the regular season.<\/p>\n

Celebrini ignited San Jose on Saturday, wiring a shot from the slot into the top left corner to tie the game 1-1 at 13:12 of the first period.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw a little screen, so I just tried to put it in there,\u201d Celebrini said. \u201cLast year I got a lot of shots blocked, so I\u2019m trying to use the D as a screen and just try to place the puck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharks defenceman Vincent Desharnais<\/a> recalled watching Celebrini work on that exact play during training camp in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe went and scored a big goal for everyone, it lifted everyone. Everyone followed and the game changed from that moment on,\u201d Desharnais said. \u201cEverything he does, everything he practises, he has a goal in mind. And you see it now \u2014 we\u2019re in March, he does things that he worked on in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so cool, it\u2019s fun to be a Shark because of that because he\u2019s a franchise player and we don\u2019t know what his ceiling is. It\u2019s going to be fun to see where he gets in the next five to 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celebrini has more assists (59) than any other Shark has points. His 94 points are also more than Will Smith<\/a> (45) and Alexander Wennberg<\/a> (43), San Jose\u2019s second- and third-leading scorers, combined.<\/p>\n

Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis<\/a> said Montreal \u201cplayed with too much risk, especially when 71 was on the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n

But longtime Sharks defenceman Mario Ferraro<\/a> believes it\u2019s no surprise opponents struggle to contain Celebrini, even when seeing him for the second time in 11 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy I\u2019m on his team,\u201d Ferraro said. \u201cSpeed, hockey sense, he\u2019s got a shot. You don\u2019t want to give him much room. I don\u2019t want to fire him up too much. I know that he gets a lot of it. He\u2019s a pretty humble kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the scoring, Ferraro pointed to Celebrini\u2019s 200-foot game as a key reason for his rise into one of the league\u2019s top stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe tries to make a lot of plays and he\u2019s successful at a lot of it, but he competes,\u201d Ferraro said. \u201cHe\u2019s the first guy on the backcheck, he\u2019s in the corner, he\u2019s not afraid to get hit. He does a lot of the little things that you might not see in a guy that puts up as many points as he does. But yeah, he works.\u201d<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 14, 2026.<\/p>\n

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 The Montreal Canadiens will be happy not to see Macklin Celebrini again this season, barring an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338,82],"class_list":["post-537446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}