We already knew that Connor McDavid was the best player in the NHL.<\/p>\n
Think back to the 2008 Olympics, and how USA\u2019s men\u2019s basketball \u201cRedeem Team\u201d, 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.<\/p>\n
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In the same way, think back to the most recent Winter Olympics, and how Canada revolved around No. 1 center McDavid.<\/p>\n
19-year-old Macklin Celebrini, one of the best players in the world, was charged with doing the top line\u2019s dirty work and getting open for McDavid passes.<\/p>\n
Nathan MacKinnon, also one of the best players in the world, started the Olympics as Canada\u2019s 3C. MacKinnon would end up, along with Celebrini, flanking McDavid to form a super line.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always interesting, on a team of alpha dogs, to learn who they think the clear alpha is.<\/p>\n
But if you weren\u2019t 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\u2019 victory.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe\u2019s the best player in the league,\u201d a frustrated Celebrini said post-game.<\/p>\n
Tonight was a reminder that Celebrini and his many young San Jose Sharks teammates have another level to get to, before they\u2019re discussed in quite the same breath as McDavid and the back-to-back defending Western Conference champions.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Tonight\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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So what does Celebrini, an arguable top-five player in the world, have to do to challenge McDavid\u2019s crown?<\/p>\n
San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky wasn\u2019t necessarily answering this question about Celebrini in comparison to McDavid, but this seems like a good place to start.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Connor has a lot of patience in his game, and that doesn\u2019t mean he just waits for the puck to come to him. He wants the puck on his stick. He demands it, but he doesn\u2019t force and make these high, high, high-risk plays. He\u2019s pretty direct in what he does,\u201d Warsofsky said. \u201cHe\u2019ll come in, he\u2019ll delay it if it\u2019s not there, he\u2019ll put it back [behind] the net, knowing he\u2019s going to get the puck back again. That\u2019s what he does extremely well.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an essential-but-underrated skill of the best player in the world, and something that Celebrini and his teammates are still getting better at.<\/p>\n
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\u201c[McDavid] feeds off his teammates well,\u201d Warsofsky said. \u201cHis teammates feed off him well and what they expect, what he\u2019s going to expect. There\u2019s a real comfortability throughout that line-up, no matter who it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The simplicity and directness of the Oilers\u2019 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\u2026and not just on the man advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see it around the league. It\u2019s not just Edmonton. It\u2019s not just the power play,\u201d Warsofsky said. \u201cGoals are scored right now, it\u2019s shooting the puck, creating chaos, getting it inside. It\u2019s going off someone\u2019s skate. It\u2019s going off someone\u2019s hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe need to shoot pucks,\u201d Celebrini said. \u201cWe passed up a lot of really good chances.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gotta play a simple direct hockey in the offensive zone,\u201d Warsofsky said, \u201cand we can\u2019t seem to grasp that consistently enough right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sharks managed just 14 shots tonight.<\/p>\n
Big picture, this is no real criticism of Celebrini and the San Jose Sharks, and their surprise season. They\u2019re still learning. Celebrini, once again, is just 19. But as McDavid and the Oilers showed tonight, there\u2019s another level for both to get to.<\/p>\n
Alex Nedeljkovic<\/p>\n
Nedeljkovic, on what allows the Edmonton Oilers to be so direct on the power play:<\/p>\n
When you have No. 97 wheeling around the ice, when he gets going, and he gets moving like that. It\u2019s very hard to stay in any sort of structure, so ideally, I guess, you\u2019d 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\u2019s allowed to skate, skate around the ice, and eventually it gets to the point where he\u2019s now penetrating good ice. It\u2019s not like he\u2019s skating around the perimeter, he\u2019s within the dots, he\u2019s within the high slot and in prime areas where he\u2019s a threat to shoot.<\/p>\n
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Macklin CelebriniSam DickinsonRyan WarsofskyConnor McDavid<\/p>\n
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The post Sharks Locker Room: There\u2019s Another Level for Celebrini, San Jose To Reach<\/a> appeared first on San Jose Hockey Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We already knew that Connor McDavid was the best player in the NHL. Think back to the 2008…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[4215,18693,2070,13505,37614,1035,12753,24178,1036,1037,88,90,89,98,13190,76466],"class_list":{"0":"post-259134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-alex-nedeljkovic","9":"tag-connor-mcdavid","10":"tag-edmonton-oilers","11":"tag-lebron-james","12":"tag-leon-draisaitl","13":"tag-macklin-celebrini","14":"tag-nashville-predators","15":"tag-nathan-mackinnon","16":"tag-ryan-warsofsky","17":"tag-sam-dickinson","18":"tag-san-jose","19":"tag-san-jose-headlines","20":"tag-san-jose-news","21":"tag-san-jose-sharks","22":"tag-the-sharks","23":"tag-zach-hyman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259134","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=259134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}