{"id":135289,"date":"2026-01-15T23:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T23:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/135289\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T23:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T23:24:11","slug":"macklin-celebrini-has-capitals-coach-spencer-carberys-vote-for-hart-trophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/135289\/","title":{"rendered":"Macklin Celebrini has Capitals coach Spencer Carbery’s vote for Hart Trophy"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Washington Capitals coach Spencer Carbery had a vote for the Hart Memorial Trophy,<\/a> he\u2019d give it, right now, to San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini.<\/p>\n

Carbery has noticed how much Celebrini has grown<\/a> in his brief NHL career, as the 19-year-old enters Thursday\u2019s game between the Sharks and Capitals as the league\u2019s third leading scorer with 70 points in 45 games.<\/a> Celebrini had 63 points in 70 games as a rookie last season.<\/p>\n

Before Thursday\u2019s games, Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid led the NHL with 82 points,<\/a> and Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon was second with 81 points. Celebrini recently said he believed McDavid and MacKinnon to be the two best players in the world.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The Hart Memorial Trophy,<\/a> presented annually \u201cto the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team,\u201d is voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe improvement that he\u2019s made from year one to year two has been incredible,\u201d Carbery said of Celebrini<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s impressive to Carbery is Celebrini\u2019s production at even strength, especially in relation to the rest of the Sharks\u2019 roster.<\/p>\n

Celebrini has 20 even-strength goals, with winger Collin Graf next on the list with 11. Celebrini also has 29 even-strength assists, 11 more than center Alexander Wennberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I were a voter, or if I had a vote \u2014 I\u2019d have to do some more research, because I don\u2019t watch San Jose all the time. I don\u2019t watch Edmonton all the time, I don\u2019t watch Colorado all the time \u2014 but from afar \u2026 he\u2019d be my Hart Trophy pick for two reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne, I feel like the San Jose Sharks are overachieving with expectations and are in a playoff spot (four) games above .500. If you look at the reasons why: organized, structured, play a good team game. But offensively, what he\u2019s doing for that team is remarkable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe easiest thing to point to is when you look at even strength, especially, go even strength points for the San Jose Sharks. Look at what he has, and then the next closest person. That just shows how much he\u2019s driving goals, offense, (and how) impactful he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was widely believed that the Sharks (23-19-3) would be an improved team this season, after they finished 2024-25 with the NHL\u2019s worst record (20-50-12). But Celebrini\u2019s play is a big reason the Sharks entered Thursday in the Western Conference\u2019s second and final wild-card spot, which is a surprise to most.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019ve got someone that\u2019s got (49) even strength points and the next closest player on this team (is Wennberg\u2019s 23), and that\u2019s not a sight against the rest of his group,\u201d Carbery said, \u201cthat\u2019s just a compliment of how incredible a season he is having and how impactful he is for the San Jose Sharks.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Capitals held Celebrini without a point on Dec. 3 when they beat the Sharks 7-1 at SAP Center. It was one of only 10 games so far this season in which Celebrini has been held without a goal or assist, and the Sharks have lost all 10.<\/p>\n

The Sharks had a decent start to that game, but the Capitals scored three times in a span of 5:10 to help take a 4-0 lead after the first period. Celebrini had two shots on net and was listed as having two giveaways in just under 16 minutes of ice time.<\/p>\n

The Capitals will try to replicate what they did six weeks ago again on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we had a pretty good game plan of (identifying) specific areas that we can pay attention to, where he can really hurt you,\u201d Carbery said of Celebrini. \u201cWhether it\u2019s in the offensive zone or off the rush in the neutral zone, we\u2019re gonna have to do a lot of those same things tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re playing well. They\u2019re 6-2 in their last eight games, in a wild-card spot. So we\u2019re going to need to do a lot of the same things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Washington Capitals coach Spencer Carbery had a vote for the Hart Memorial Trophy, he\u2019d give it, right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[46926,1035,88,90,89,98,64045,8319],"class_list":{"0":"post-135289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-hart-trophy","9":"tag-macklin-celebrini","10":"tag-san-jose","11":"tag-san-jose-headlines","12":"tag-san-jose-news","13":"tag-san-jose-sharks","14":"tag-spencer-carbery","15":"tag-washington-capitals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}