Sharks Locker Room: There’s Another Level for Celebrini, San Jose To Reach

We already knew that Connor McDavid was the best player in the NHL.

Think back to the 2008 Olympics, and how USA’s men’s basketball “Redeem Team”, which featured all-time greats Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Paul, and Carmelo Anthony in their primes, deferred to Bryant in the fourth quarter.

In the same way, think back to the most recent Winter Olympics, and how Canada revolved around No. 1 center McDavid.

19-year-old Macklin Celebrini, one of the best players in the world, was charged with doing the top line’s dirty work and getting open for McDavid passes.

Nathan MacKinnon, also one of the best players in the world, started the Olympics as Canada’s 3C. MacKinnon would end up, along with Celebrini, flanking McDavid to form a super line.

It’s always interesting, on a team of alpha dogs, to learn who they think the clear alpha is.

But if you weren’t sure if McDavid was the best hockey player in the world, the Edmonton Oilers superstar dropped a hat trick and five points on the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday, en route to an easy 5-2 Oilers’ victory.

“He’s the best player in the league,” a frustrated Celebrini said post-game.

Tonight was a reminder that Celebrini and his many young San Jose Sharks teammates have another level to get to, before they’re discussed in quite the same breath as McDavid and the back-to-back defending Western Conference champions.

That’s no knock on Celebrini, the super-sophomore who has crafted a Hart Trophy-caliber campaign, and his teammates, who all gamely dragged the Sharks into the Western Conference playoff race.

Tonight’s loss, however, leaves San Jose three points out of the last wild card spot in the West, two teams to leapfrog, five games left. The Sharks do have one game in hand on the eighth-place Nashville Predators.

So what does Celebrini, an arguable top-five player in the world, have to do to challenge McDavid’s crown?

San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky wasn’t necessarily answering this question about Celebrini in comparison to McDavid, but this seems like a good place to start.

“I think Connor has a lot of patience in his game, and that doesn’t mean he just waits for the puck to come to him. He wants the puck on his stick. He demands it, but he doesn’t force and make these high, high, high-risk plays. He’s pretty direct in what he does,” Warsofsky said. “He’ll come in, he’ll delay it if it’s not there, he’ll put it back [behind] the net, knowing he’s going to get the puck back again. That’s what he does extremely well.”

That’s an essential-but-underrated skill of the best player in the world, and something that Celebrini and his teammates are still getting better at.

“[McDavid] feeds off his teammates well,” Warsofsky said. “His teammates feed off him well and what they expect, what he’s going to expect. There’s a real comfortability throughout that line-up, no matter who it is.”

McDavid was missing top forwards Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman, both injured, but still put up a true MVP performance. This should come with more Celebrini experience and more polished talent surrounding him.

The simplicity and directness of the Oilers’ power play, tops in the league at 30.7 percent, first three goals of the game off the PP, is something that Celebrini and the Sharks can learn from, too…and not just on the man advantage.

“You see it around the league. It’s not just Edmonton. It’s not just the power play,” Warsofsky said. “Goals are scored right now, it’s shooting the puck, creating chaos, getting it inside. It’s going off someone’s skate. It’s going off someone’s hand.”

“We need to shoot pucks,” Celebrini said. “We passed up a lot of really good chances.”

“You gotta play a simple direct hockey in the offensive zone,” Warsofsky said, “and we can’t seem to grasp that consistently enough right now.”

The Sharks managed just 14 shots tonight.

Big picture, this is no real criticism of Celebrini and the San Jose Sharks, and their surprise season. They’re still learning. Celebrini, once again, is just 19. But as McDavid and the Oilers showed tonight, there’s another level for both to get to.

Alex Nedeljkovic

Nedeljkovic, on what allows the Edmonton Oilers to be so direct on the power play:

When you have No. 97 wheeling around the ice, when he gets going, and he gets moving like that. It’s very hard to stay in any sort of structure, so ideally, I guess, you’d want to not allow them to get in that position in the first place. It might look random. It might look a little chaotic, but it looks that way because he’s allowed to skate, skate around the ice, and eventually it gets to the point where he’s now penetrating good ice. It’s not like he’s skating around the perimeter, he’s within the dots, he’s within the high slot and in prime areas where he’s a threat to shoot.

Macklin CelebriniSam DickinsonRyan WarsofskyConnor McDavid

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Sharks Locker Room: There’s Another Level for Celebrini, San Jose To Reach

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