July 29 (Reuters) \u2013 The San Jose Sharks on Wednesday signed Canadian forward Macklin Celebrini to a five-year, $94 million contract extension that will make him the highest-paid NHL player.<\/p>\n
The \u200bdeal carries an $18.8 million average annual value and \u200cwill keep the 20-year-old centre in San Jose through the 2031-32 season.<\/p>\n
The North Vancouver native was selected first by the Sharks in the 2024 NHL Draft and has established himself as one of the league\u2019s top young talents, \u200csetting \u200bSan Jose\u2019s franchise scoring record last season \u2060with 115 points.<\/p>\n
Earlier this \u2060year he won a silver medal with Canada at the Milano Cortina Olympics, where he became the youngest Canadian NHL player to feature at the tournament. He also led the \u200bOlympics with five goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t be happier to sign an extension today,\u201d \u202fCelebrini said in a statement, also thanking Sharks \u2060owner Hasso Plattner\u00a0and general manager Mike Grier.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy \u2060teammates and I are ready to take another \u200bstep toward the\u202fultimate goal\u202fof bringing a Stanley Cup to this city \u200band its incredible fans.\u202fI\u202fcan\u2019t\u202fwait to get going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last season Celebrini \u200cjoined Canadian great Wayne Gretzky as the only players under 20 years old to achieve a 40-plus goal, 70-plus assist season.<\/p>\n
His point total was the third-best among teens in a single \u2060season in league history, trailing only Sidney Crosby and Gretzky, and he also joined the pair as the only three teens in league \u2060history to finish \u200cin the top five of a season\u2019s scoring \u2060rankings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn just two seasons as a teenager in \u200bthe \u200cNational Hockey League and on the international stage, \u200bMacklin has \u2060established himself as one of the premier players in the world,\u201d Grier said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are extremely excited to have him secured and committed as the centerpiece of a core of talented players in San Jose.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Nicole Fernandes in Toronto, editing \u200bby Pritha Sarkar)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 29 (Reuters) \u2013 The San Jose Sharks on Wednesday signed Canadian forward Macklin Celebrini to a five-year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-416857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416857","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=416857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}