{"id":183640,"date":"2026-02-18T23:37:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/183640\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T23:37:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:37:21","slug":"san-jose-sharks-not-surprised-by-macklin-celebrinis-olympic-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/183640\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks not surprised by Macklin Celebrini’s Olympic success"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2014 San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini is the youngest NHL player<\/a> competing in the men\u2019s hockey tournament<\/a> at the Winter Olympic Games in Milan Cortina.<\/p>\n

All the 19-year-old Celebrini has done so far is become the event\u2019s second-leading scorer<\/a>, right behind linemate Connor McDavid, while helping a stacked Canadian team advance to Friday\u2019s semifinals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

None of which<\/a> surprises his Sharks teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the best player in the world, and he\u2019s proving it,\u201d Sharks winger Ryan Reaves said of Celebrini. \u201cThat\u2019s what the best players do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celebrini, in the biggest game of his life to this point, had three points \u2014 including the primary assist on Mitch Marner\u2019s overtime winner \u2014 as Canada earned a thrilling 4-3 quarterfinal win<\/a> over Czechia on Wednesday at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena.<\/p>\n

In the 3-on-3 overtime, Celebrini sent a drop pass to Marner, who danced through three Czechia defenders \u2014 including former Sharks defenseman Radim Simek \u2014 before his backhand shot beat goalie Lukas Dostal at the 1:22 mark of the 10-minute extra session.<\/p>\n

Marner\u2019s goal sent his teammates streaming onto the ice in celebration, and the Canadians into the semifinals against Finland, which came back to beat Switzerland and Sharks forward Philipp Kurashev 3-2 in overtime. Kurashev had an assist in the loss.<\/p>\n

Sharks winger Pavol Regenda is in the other semifinal after scoring twice to help Slovakia beat Germany 6-2. Slovakia will play the United States, which beat Sweden 2-1<\/a>\u00a0in overtime on a goal by Minnesota Wild defenseman Quinn Hughes.<\/p>\n

Celebrini and Slovakia will either play for gold on Sunday or for bronze on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I\u2019m rooting for Canada as a Canadian, so it\u2019s good to see Celebrini do well,\u201d Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro said. \u201cNot only is he doing well, but he\u2019s one of the best players in the tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot just him, it\u2019s other guys, too, throughout our lineup. It\u2019s good for us as a team, and hopefully a good confidence builder for guys coming back here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite this being just his second NHL season, Celebrini has become an integral part of Canada\u2019s loaded roster. He entered the Olympics as the NHL\u2019s fourth-leading scorer with 81 points in 55 games, and through the preliminary round and quarterfinals, has five goals and four assists.<\/p>\n

While Celebrini\u2019s sterling play so far has perhaps opened some eyes across North America and the world, it\u2019s not a revelation to anyone in San Jose.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not surprised at all,\u201d Sharks winger Collin Graf said. \u201cWe see it maybe a little more than other people, just because we see it in practice and in every game. But I don\u2019t think anyone in this room was surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celebrini has been alongside McDavid \u2013 a three-time Hart Trophy winner as the NHL\u2019s MVP \u2013 from the start of the tournament last week. Those two have been joined at times by Nathan MacKinnon, putting three of the NHL\u2019s top four scorers on one line.<\/p>\n

Celebrini scored at the 3:05 mark of the first period off an assist from McDavid, and the pair then assisted on MacKinnon\u2019s power-play goal that tied the game 2-2 at the 12:16 mark of the second period.<\/p>\n

Celebrini now has a goal in every game he\u2019s played in Milan and is two points back of McDavid for the overall scoring lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought McDavid was playing with (Celebrini), to be honest,\u201d Reaves said with a smile when asked about Celebrini playing with McDavid and MacKinnon. \u201cBut that line is out of control. That\u2019s got to be, if not the best, one of the best lines ever created in Olympic history or hockey history, to be honest. It\u2019s fun to watch those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celebrini\u2019s nine points for the tournament moved him past Evgeni Malkin\u00a0for the most points by a teenager in a single Olympic tournament with NHL players. Malkin, the longtime Pittsburgh Penguins star, had six points in seven games for Russia during the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy.<\/p>\n

Celebrini also became the fourth player to record a goal in four consecutive Olympic games featuring NHL players, joining Marian Hossa (2006 with Slovakia), former Shark Teemu Selanne (2006 with Finland), and Mats Sundin (2002 with Sweden).<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just an ultra-competitor, a gamer,\u201d Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said of Celebrini. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem like he gets too overwhelmed by moments, and we\u2019re seeing that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

REGENDA LEADS SLOVAKIA INTO SEMIS<\/p>\n

Regenda opened the scoring at the 18:06 mark of the first period, and his second goal 58 seconds into the third period gave Slovakia a 5-1 lead. Regenda is tied for third on Slovakia\u2019s roster in scoring with four points in four games.<\/p>\n

Regenda helped Slovakia win the Bronze Medal at the 2022 Games in Beijing.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing into the tournament, seeing the roster, I don\u2019t think anybody believed us, and probably neither did we,\u201d Regenda told reporters. \u201cUnderdogs can bite really hard, so we are really happy where we are right now. Top four, unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2014 San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini is the youngest NHL player competing in the men\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184,7,402,181,1035,404,10012,88,90,89,98,198,403,200,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-183640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-bay-area","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-inside-sports","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-macklin-celebrini","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-olympics","15":"tag-san-jose","16":"tag-san-jose-headlines","17":"tag-san-jose-news","18":"tag-san-jose-sharks","19":"tag-santa-clara-county","20":"tag-sharks-alert","21":"tag-south-bay","22":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183640","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=183640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}