To a man, the San Jose Sharks are thrilled that Macklin Celebrini is their new captain.<\/p>\n
The Sharks officially named the 20-year-old their captain on Friday morning.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a long, um, short time coming. All summer, expectation was that the San Jose Sharks would name the 2024 No. 1 pick captain before the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all knew he was going to be the captain,\u201d Tyler Toffoli, alternate captain last season, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were all expecting it,\u201d Will Smith, who said the team learned a couple days ago, said. \u201cHe\u2019s gonna have that letter for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
Celebrini, who signed a five-year, $94 million extension that will keep him with the Sharks until 2032, has just two seasons in the NHL under his belt.<\/p>\n
But from the beginning, he was demonstrating captain-like traits.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom even the first camp he was here, you see right away how hard he competes everyday. There\u2019s no off-days,\u201d Alex Wennberg, alternate captain last season, said of Celebrini\u2019s 2024-25 rookie campaign. \u201cHe works hard and you see him going out first and last guy to leave, working hard in the gym, that pulls guys along.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toffoli said that Celebrini, who was also named alternate captain last year, became an even better leader in his sophomore campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou definitely saw it. Not only from how well he was playing, but just the day-to-day little things that definitely go unnoticed,\u201d Toffoli said, \u201cLast year, you definitely saw him take that stride.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the ice, you guys all see how special he is as a player,\u201d Collin Graf said. \u201cAnd then off the ice too, just leading by example, pushing everyone else to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even the newcomers to the San Jose Sharks have been impressed.<\/p>\n
Defenseman Darnell Nurse, acquired via trade in July, was on the Edmonton Oilers when 19-year-old Connor McDavid was named captain in Oct. 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust be himself,\u201d Nurse said, of his advice to Celebrini. \u201cHe was named the captain for a reason. It\u2019s not because [of] something that he needs to be. It\u2019s the person that he is and the player that he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
GM Mike Grier added that the San Jose Sharks would announce 2026-27 alternate captains next week, before opening night on Oct. 1.<\/p>\n
So for the first time since Jan. 31, 2024, now-retired Logan Couture\u2019s last NHL game, the San Jose Sharks will have an active captain in Celebrini on the ice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s the perfect hockey player [to lead]?\u201d Wennberg asked, rhetorically. \u201cHe\u2019s meant to be this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To a man, the San Jose Sharks are thrilled that Macklin Celebrini is their new captain. The Sharks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[4216,3524,90987,1035,4401,1036,88,90,89,98,3809,3578],"class_list":["post-476007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-alex-wennberg","tag-collin-graf","tag-darnell-nurse","tag-macklin-celebrini","tag-mike-grier","tag-ryan-warsofsky","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-tyler-toffoli","tag-will-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476007","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=476007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}