The San Jose Sharks signed star center Macklin Celebrini to the richest contract in franchise history on Wednesday, a five-year extension worth $94 million. The contract\u2019s average annual value is $18.8 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn just two seasons as a teenager in the National Hockey League and on the international stage, Macklin has established himself as one of the premier players in the world,\u201d Sharks general manager Mike Grier said in a statement. \u201cWe are extremely excited to have him secured and committed as the centerpiece of a core of talented players in San Jose.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we continue our goal of building a team capable of annually competing for the Stanley Cup, we want to thank Macklin and his representatives for a respectful negotiation process, and acknowledge the flexibility they have provided to the team in how we allocate future dollars towards the team being constructed around Macklin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how Celebrini\u2019s contract breaks down, courtesy of PuckPedia:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Year 1: $950,000 salary and $19.85 million signing bonus
\u2022 Year 2: $950,000 salary and a $19.85 million signing bonus
\u2022 Year 3: $1 million salary and a $ 19.8 million signing bonus
\u2022 Year 4: $1 million salary and a $ 16.1 million signing bonus
\u2022 Year 5: $1 million salary and a $13.5 million signing bonus, plus a no-move clause<\/p>\n
How this 19-year-old became his team\u2019s best player<\/p>\n
Harman Dayal<\/p>\n
The Sharks\u2019 largest contract was previously handed to Erik Karlsson in 2019 \u2014 an eight-year extension worth $92 million ($11.5 million AAV) signed following his first season with the team, after San Jose acquired him from the Ottawa Senators. Karlsson spent five years with the Sharks before waiving his no-movement clause to facilitate a 2023 trade to the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Sharks still have $1.5 million retained for this season.<\/p>\n
This deal for the 20-year-old Celebrini, which begins in the 2027-28 season and covers one year of unrestricted free agency, comes during a summer in which notable young restricted free agents landed massive contracts. Within weeks of each other, the Anaheim Ducks kept Leo Carlsson by matching a five-year, $90 million offer sheet the center signed with the Philadelphia Flyers, and the Chicago Blackhawks re-signed Connor Bedard to a five-year, $75 million contract.<\/p>\n
Celebrini\u2019s next contract will have the highest AAV in the NHL \u2014 though it remains to be seen if his deal will stay in that position as the salary cap rises to $113.5 million for 2027-28 and potentially higher in subsequent seasons. Among those in line to potentially break the bank are Cale Makar, Nikita Kucherov, Jason Robertson and Quinn Hughes. Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews and Zach Werenski have contracts that expire in 2028.<\/p>\n
In just two seasons, Celebrini has already established himself as one of the most exciting players in the NHL and the face of a new era of the Sharks. The center erupted in 2025-26 and was a Calder Trophy finalist as a rookie in 2024-25. Celebrini\u2019s 115 points last season ranked fourth in the league, and he finished fourth in Hart Trophy voting. With 45 goals and 70 assists, Celebrini\u2019s point total was nearly double that of the Sharks\u2019 next highest-scoring player: Will Smith, who notched 59 points.<\/p>\n
The Sharks can now turn to Smith for their next significant contractual order of business. Smith\u2019s entry-level contract is also set to expire after the 2026-27 season. But with the rising cap, teams are pushing harder to get their prime RFAs signed well ahead of expiration to prevent possible offer sheets from other clubs.<\/p>\n
What it means for the Sharks<\/p>\n
This latest monster deal answers the question of whether Celebrini would become the NHL\u2019s first $20 million AAV player. That didn\u2019t quite happen, but the numbers his agent, Pat Brisson, and Grier arrived at show they both view the center as a face-of-the-league type \u2014 something Celebrini proved with his play during a remarkable season.<\/p>\n
Grier\u2019s statement reflects how much the Sharks value Celebrini and where his standing as a young superstar should be. It also hints at Celebrini and Brisson not looking to cripple the Sharks from a financial standpoint. The most that any one player can make in the NHL salary structure is 20 percent of a team\u2019s cap number, and with the contract starting in 2027-28 \u2014 and the cap poised to rise even further \u2014 that means $22.7 million. An $18.8 million AAV comes in well under that.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s important as the Sharks pave a road toward Stanley Cup contention over the next five years. With loads of cap space going into this summer, they\u2019ve already been spending freely, signing Jacob Trouba and Mason Marchment as free agents and taking on the remaining four years of Darnell Nurse\u2019s contract in full. It was the first sign that Grier wants to shift the Sharks out of rebuild mode.<\/p>\n
Though they still need to re-sign RFA forward Collin Graf and address the next contract for the offensively gifted Will Smith, the Sharks have a clean cap sheet moving forward. Meanwhile, Celebrini can work on building an already impressive resume and obtaining some hardware in the coming years. Perhaps there is a Hart Trophy in his future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Jose Sharks signed star center Macklin Celebrini to the richest contract in franchise history on Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[822,404,88,90,89,98],"class_list":["post-417177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-fantasy-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-sharks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417177","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=417177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}