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For 18 months, Macklin Celebrini has carried the weight of a franchise on his shoulders. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft has hoisted the San Jose Sharks, willed them into playoff contention, and turned the Bay Area sports spotlight back on SAP Center for the first time since the mid-2010s, when the now-19-year-old was still in grade school.
While the expectations are soaring in San Jose, they pale in comparison to the pressure Celebrini will feel next month, when he becomes the youngest player ever on Canada’s Olympic hockey team. For fans in Montreal, Toronto, and Celebrini’s hometown of Vancouver, the only acceptable outcome at the Milan Cortina Olympic Games is gold.
“There’s a sense of pride and honor that goes with putting on that sweater,” said Celebrini, who began playing for Canadian junior national teams in 2022.
Over 23 Winter Olympics, Canada has collected 16 medals, nine of them gold. This winter marks the first time since 2014 that Olympic hockey will feature NHL stars, as the league will pause for three weeks in February so players can compete on the greatest international stage.
Celebrini will share the ice with generational figures in Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby, 38, and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, 29, winners of a combined five Hart Trophies. Considering how early he’s arriving on the world stage, Celebrini could compete in as many as five Olympics. (At the 2042 Olympics, he will be a year younger than Crosby is now.)
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Celebrini’s shot at gold should help the Sharks too. With the season more than halfway complete, San Jose (26-21-3) nudged ahead of the Seattle Kraken for the second-wild card spot thanks to two Celebrini goals in a 3-1 win over the Rangers on Friday. For a team that hasn’t sniffed the playoffs since 2019 and is a decade removed from a Stanley Cup appearance, these are the biggest games any member of the organization has been associated with in years.
“When he plays in the Olympics, that’s pretty much playoff hockey. That will be like Game 7s,” coach Ryan Warsofsky said.
As Bay Area fans marvel at what Steph Curry is achieving at 37, there’s a similar sense of awe building around Celebrini for his age-defying abilities — on the other end of the maturity spectrum.
Celebrini was only 3 when the Canadians won gold in Vancouver in 2010. He’s 20 years younger than his eldest teammate, Ryan Reaves, but in his second NHL season, Celebrini has turned a dormant Sharks franchise into the league’s most surprising playoff contender.
What was Reaves doing at 19?
“That’s apples and astronauts,” the 39-year-old joked. “He’s physical. He’s not shy. He’s in front of the nets, and he doesn’t just score on the perimeter or cheat for offense.”
After making the All-Rookie team last year, Celebrini this season has posted 26 goals and 48 assists (74 points) in 50 games. He leads the Sharks in scoring by a wide margin, responsible for nearly 50% of the team’s scoring output for the year, a percentage only rivaled by McDavid.
“It’s impressive, what he does in general, but for him to be 19 is even crazier,” Sharks defenseman Vincent Desharnais said after practice Thursday. “It’s going to be so impressive to have him around here for the next 10 years.”
Celebrini has entered the MVP conversation; he would be the league’s youngest winner since his Team Canada teammate Crosby took home the Hart Trophy in 2007. Thanks to Celebrini’s ascendance, the Sharks are surging back to relevance. Attendance at the Shark Tank has jumped 15% this season, the largest year-over-year increase of any team in the league.
Players are starting to feel like local celebrities, recognized around San Jose. Pacific teal is coloring more corners around the Bay Area, and this week, the Sharks captured buzz with a viral, rare goalie fight featuring Alex Nedeljkovic.
“The energy in the buildings and our games here in the last month has really risen. Our guys can feel it and feed off of it,” Warsofsky said. “We still have a lot to work on, but our guys are starting to understand what it feels like to win.”
No one understands it better than Celebrini, who will soon find out what it’s like to skate with the weight of a country — not just a franchise — on his shoulders.