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Celebrini is fourth in the league in points with 107 and is just the sixth teenager ever to have at least 100 in a season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a goal of mine. I didn\u2019t really think I\u2019d do it this year. I have a bunch of amazing teammates that helped me get here.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Only two players have ever won the Hart Trophy in a season before they turned 20 with Wayne Gretzky doing it in 1979-80 and Sidney Crosby in 2006-07.<\/p>\n
Gretzky and Crosby are the only teenagers ever to score more points in a season than Celebrini\u2019s 107 with the Great One setting a record for teens with 137 in his Hart Trophy season and Crosby finishing with 120 when he won it.<\/p>\n
But those players had far more help than Celebrini, whose MVP case is about how much of a share of the Sharks offense he has to carry. Celebrini has a point on 46.1% of goals for San Jose this season \u2014 the best mark ever for a player before turning 20 — and the second highest in the league this season to Connor McDavid\u2019s 47.5% for Edmonton headed into Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can handle it,\u201d teammate Zack Ostapchuk said. \u201cHe\u2019s not a typical 19-year old. He can do that. He\u2019s our guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Celebrini turned the fortunes of the franchise ever since he was chosen No. 1 overall in the 2024 draft. San Jose had gone from one of the most successful franchises in the league over a 15-year span starting in 2003-04 with five trips to the conference final and one Stanley Cup Final appearance to one of the worst before this Celebrini-engineered turnaround.<\/p>\n
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San Jose had the worst record in the league the past six seasons and finished last in points the previous two seasons before getting back into contention this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one thought we\u2019d be here,\u201d coach Ryan Warsofsky said. \u201cLet\u2019s be honest. Here we are. We\u2019re going to embrace it and keep going.”<\/p>\n
One of the few people not surprised is Celebrini, who expects success. He grew up getting to see great athletes up close with his father, Rick, having served as director of sports medicine and performance the past eight seasons for the NBA\u2019s Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n
Celebrini has also played on a high level internationally, appearing in the 2025 World Championships for Team Canada and leading all players with five goals on the way to winning a silver medal at the Olympics in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we had expectations on ourselves,\u201d Celebrini said of the Sharks. \u201cYou can say all you want about the division or the position we\u2019re in. But the goal is to make the playoffs, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to try to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Celebrini has helped renew interest in the team locally. The Sharks have sold out 21 games this season \u2014 nearly double the total of 11 from the season before he arrived \u2014 and attendance is up nearly 2,000 fans per game over last season.<\/p>\n
An arena that was one of the most difficult for opposing teams to play in during the franchise\u2019s heyday is back to its old form after years of small crowds and empty seats following the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fans are here. It\u2019s loud. We\u2019re winning games, and we\u2019re making a push,\u201d Celebrini said. \u201cThis is exciting. I haven\u2019t really been through this before. I\u2019m just trying to soak it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
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AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini celebrates after scoring against the Anaheim Ducks during the third period of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2094,163,165,164,18693,47,24178,18056,5341,5337,5340,1036,113387,4861,20223,26194],"class_list":{"0":"post-256539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-alexander-wennberg","9":"tag-anaheim","10":"tag-anaheim-headlines","11":"tag-anaheim-news","12":"tag-connor-mcdavid","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-nathan-mackinnon","15":"tag-nikita-kucherov","16":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","17":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","18":"tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","19":"tag-ryan-warsofsky","20":"tag-sharks-macklin-celebrini","21":"tag-sidney-crosby","22":"tag-wayne-gretzky","23":"tag-zack-ostapchuk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256539","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=256539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}