SAN JOSE – General manager Mike Grier knew he would one day make leading scorer Macklin Celebrini captain of the San Jose Sharks. But with his top-line center being so young, only two years removed from being drafted, it was just a matter of finding the right time.

So as Grier saw that the 20-year-old Celebrini, already one of the NHL’s best players, had called and congratulated the team’s newest draft picks in June, was organizing his teammates to return to San Jose well before the start of camp, worked all summer to get better, and had the respect of veteran players — even ones he didn’t know well — he recognized that he didn’t have to wait any longer.

“Once we got into training camp and saw how things were going,” Grier said, “it kind of finalized that decision from there.”

Grier and the Sharks on Friday named Celebrini the franchise’s 11th full-time captain, signaling the start of a new era for the organization as he becomes the youngest player in team history to hold the distinction.

At 20 years and 104 days old, Celebrini is also the sixth-youngest full-time captain in NHL history, and will wear the ‘C’ for the first time on Saturday when the Sharks travel to Las Vegas to play the Golden Knights in the final preseason game for both teams. The Sharks open the regular season at home next Thursday against the Florida Panthers.

“It’s a huge honor,” Celebrini said. “It’s just something that I can’t really take lightly. Obviously, there’s a responsibility that comes with that. But at the same time, I’m not really going to change who I am or what I do.

“Just a huge honor first and foremost, and with that comes some responsibility.”

“He’s earned it through the way he works and competes and the way he’s played on the ice and the way he’s handled himself off the ice,” Grier said. “I don’t know if anyone drafts someone at 18 and thinks by the time they’re 20 they’re going to be leading your team and be your captain. But there are those rare special players who do it, and Macklin is one of them.”

On Friday morning, the Sharks posted a video of Grier holding the door open to the team’s theater room at Sharks Ice for Joe Thornton, the Hockey Hall of Fame centerman who served as San Jose’s captain from 2010-2014.

In front of the team, Thornton, whose No. 19 the organization retired in 2024, held a teal jersey with Celebrini’s name and No. 71 on the back and a capital ‘C’ on the front.

Thornton was a fitting choice for the official presentation, since two years ago he announced, at The Sphere in Las Vegas, that Celebrini was going to the Sharks as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NHL draft. Celebrini also lived at Thornton’s South Bay property the last two years.

In April, Celebrini established a new team record for scoring in a single season with 115 points in 82 games in 2025-26, breaking Thornton’s nearly 20-year-old record by one point.

“Getting the jersey from Jumbo, him and his family have such a special place in my life just with how they accepted me into their family two years ago, and everything that they’ve done for me,” Celebrini said. “I can’t really put into words how much his family means to me.”

Celebrini, a native of North Vancouver, B.C., has been the Sharks’ leading scorer in each of his first two NHL seasons. After the regular season ended in April, Celebrini, as an indication of how much respect he’s garnered from his peers, was named a finalist for the Ted Lindsay Award, given to the NHL’s most outstanding player as voted by members of the NHL Players Association.

In July, the Sharks made Celebrini the highest-paid player in team history, signing him to a five-year, $94 million contract extension that keeps him with the team until the end of the 2031-32 season.

“It definitely starts with his work ethic,” said Sharks winger Tyler Toffoli, a Stanley Cup winner in 2014 with the Los Angeles Kings. “It’s not always the things he says. Obviously, he’s very vocal in the sense that he’s still a young kid, and he enjoys coming to the rink and cracking jokes and having fun.

“But at the same time, when it comes to work and in the middle of a period in a game, he’s serious. It’s one of those things when whenever he talks, you listen.”

Celebrini also captained Canada at the IIHF World Championship in May, a team that featured several respected NHL veterans. Celebrini’s idol, Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby, had been Canada’s captain at the 2010, 2014 and 2026 Winter Olympics, but wanted Celebrini to wear the ‘C’ at the World Championships.

Crosby became the Penguins captain in May 2007 when he was just 19. Celebrini didn’t ask Crosby about captaining an NHL team at such a young age, but about how he handled expectations coming into the NHL.

“Just how he felt the guys supported him and were there, and how much that meant to him,” Celebrini said, “and how he just kept doing his thing and just kept being himself.”

Logan Couture served as the Sharks’ captain from the start of the 2019-20 season until the end of 2024-25, when he announced that his playing career was ending due to a chronic injury to his groin and pelvic area. Couture began his Sharks career in 2009 and is fourth on the team’s all-time scoring list with 701 points.

Before last season began, the Sharks chose not to replace Couture, announcing instead that Celebrini, Toffoli, Barclay Goodrow, Mario Ferraro and Alexander Wennberg would serve as alternate captains.

Now with Celebrini leading the way, the Sharks hope to turn the page — after years of rebuilding — and make the playoffs for the first time since 2019, when the now-retired Joe Pavelski was the team’s captain.

Since Celebrini was drafted, Grier and the Sharks have almost completely overhauled the roster and now have a mix of veterans with extensive playoff experience and several recent early-round picks that represent the team’s future nucleus.

“We have so many amazing leaders and veterans in our group; they rub off on all of us, and they’ve set the example from day one,” Celebrini said. “So, just an amazing honor, and I just feel privileged to be able to wear this jersey and be the captain.”