{"id":339426,"date":"2026-05-30T20:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/339426\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T20:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:12:12","slug":"report-celebrini-all-but-guaranteed-to-be-next-sharks-captain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/339426\/","title":{"rendered":"REPORT: Celebrini ‘All But Guaranteed’ To Be Next Sharks Captain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Per Emily Kaplan<\/a> of ESPN, San Jose Sharks superstar Macklin Celebrini is \u201call but guaranteed\u201d to be the franchise\u2019s 13th captain.<\/p>\n

Celebrini, 19, was named as an alternate captain for the 2025-26 season. After an amazing rookie season, the Sharks\u2019 No. 1 center followed it up with a record-breaking<\/a> 115 points and almost carried his team to the Stanley Cup Playoffs<\/a>. <\/p>\n

While playing for Team Canada<\/a> at the 2026 IIHF World Championship<\/a>, Celebrini was named captain. At the time, the San Jose Sharks centerman was the youngest player on the roster. Since then, Porter Martone has joined the team and is now the youngest player. But the key addition to the squad was Sidney Crosby<\/a>, Celebrini\u2019s idol and true captain of Team Canada. Although Crosby joined the roster, reports indicated that Crosby insisted on Celebrini keeping the \u2018C\u2019.<\/p>\n

Like in 2025, the duo played together on the same line. During that tournament, Crosby requested to play with the Sharks\u2019 rising star. Crosby would get his wish and play center on a line with Celebrini. Now the roles are reversed, at least on the ice, as Celebrini is centering a line with Crosby on his wing.<\/p>\n

Canada faces Finland in the Semi-Final on Saturday, and Celebrini leads all Canadian skaters in the tournament with 12 points (6 goals, 6 assists) in eight games. During Canada\u2019s quarter-final match against Team USA, Celebrini scored a beautiful game-opening goal. The San Jose Sharks franchise centerman\u2019s goal would hold as the game-winner. Canada defeated the USA 4-0.<\/p>\n

Celebrini has been endorsed by his Sharks teammates to become the next captain. During the team\u2019s exit interviews<\/a>, Tyler Toffoli<\/a> and Ryan Reaves<\/a> believe that Celebrini has what it takes to be an NHL captain.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see a reason why not. I mean, he leads by example,\u201d Toffoli said. \u201cWhen you work as hard as he does, and how intense and everything that he brings, I definitely don\u2019t see a reason why not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what else he could possibly do,\u201d Reaves said. \u201cWe talked about it before, his leadership on the ice is, I\u2019ve seen it before. I saw it in a guy named Sidney Crosby, number one. So, pretty good comparison.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Celebrini is learning from the best at Worlds. Clearly, Hockey Canada is priming the Sharks star to be the next face of the nation, and Crosby is the one teaching him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Per Emily Kaplan of ESPN, San Jose Sharks superstar Macklin Celebrini is \u201call but guaranteed\u201d to be the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[133388,139879,1035,2993,88,90,89,98,139880,4861,755,42303,3809],"class_list":["post-339426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-2026-iihf-world-championship","tag-emily-kaplan","tag-macklin-celebrini","tag-ryan-reaves","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sharks-captain","tag-sidney-crosby","tag-sj-sharks","tag-team-canada","tag-tyler-toffoli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339426","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=339426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}