{"id":766632,"date":"2026-07-16T17:00:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/766632\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T17:00:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:00:27","slug":"could-macklin-celebrinis-take-a-pay-cut-on-his-next-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/766632\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Macklin Celebrini’s Take A Pay Cut On His Next Contract?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Macklin Celebrini<\/a> has already cemented himself as an NHL star and with that, he is now weighing the options of how his next contract will look, according to Greg Wyshynski of ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At just the mere age of 20 years old, he has the world of hockey in front of him. In 2025-26, he carried the San Jose Sharks, scoring 115 points in a full 82-game campaign as a sophomore NHLer, 5 goals (the most of the tournament) for 10 points at the Olympics for Canada, and captained his native country at the IIHF World Championships, winning the federation\u2019s Male Player of the Year award.<\/p>\n

Along with all of this, he has a lot more on his plate to think about. Right now, Celebrini is an extension-eligible player. He has one year remaining on his entry-level contract, a three-year, $2.93MM ($975K AAV) deal signed back in 2024, after being the No. 1 overall selection in the NHL Draft in that year. The Sharks are without a doubt enjoying the growth and impact their star man is experiencing in this rebuild they have, especially at a cost-effective $8k cost-per-point, the most efficient tally from an entry-level contract in 2025-26. However, such production will come with a payday, a hefty one at that, when he will become an RFA at 2026-27 season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

Around the NHL, the attention is focused on RFAs and offer sheets. It now shifts to first and third overall picks from 2023 in Connor Bedard<\/a> and Adam Fantilli<\/a>, who both would ideally see their draft class colleague\u2019s situation and view themselves receiving significant paygrades as well. The question now begs for teams with young elite talents like the Chicago Blackhawks and Columbus Blue Jackets, is: What are our players going to want? San Jose must consider this soon as well with\u00a0Celebrini.<\/p>\n

When asking about the next contract, Wyshynski referred to fellow Canadian international teammates of Celebrini and NHL veterans Sidney Crosby<\/a> and Nathan MacKinnon<\/a>, both of whom opted for taking pay cuts on their contracts to help their teams in the construction of a Stanley Cup roster in a hard cap league. He also asked this in light of the Flyers dropping a bombshell $90MM contract in the lap of the Anaheim Ducks with Leo Carlsson<\/a>. A 5 year, $18MM AAV contract offered to the 21-year-old Swedish center will make him the NHL\u2019s highest-paid player, beating out Kirill Kaprizov<\/a>\u2018s $17MM AAV signed not long ago with the Wild.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026Obviously, guys want to get paid \u2014 as they should, because you\u2019ve got to make a living. There are guys that deserve those numbers that are getting them,\u201d said Celebrini via ESPN, \u201cbut of course you want to put your team in the best spot possible where you give a team the ability to make moves necessary to win. I think all that goes into the decision.\u201d\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The obvious answer is to pay, but given how much of a dent $18MM or more could be for a team with a player so early in their career, and the surrounding young talent that will also require their paydays, it all must be considered when a clock is ticking over a respective GM\u2019s head, like Verbeek and the Ducks just went through. The Sharks will also be a team that, with so much young talent, needs to swim carefully in these waters.<\/p>\n

Per AFPAnalytics, Celebrini\u2019s next contract is projected at seven years, $119MM, which would be a $17MM annual pay grade on the Sharks\u2019 books and would take up exactly 15% of the team\u2019s cap hit. A league-wide cap limit that reaches a total of $113.5MM in 2027-28 when the deal would kick in. San Jose right now has $52.5MM open for business next summer and can totally fit Celebrini within that.<\/p>\n

So do Macklin\u2019s mentor\u2019s actions factor into his decision? When looking at the history, Crosby signed a 5-year, $43.5MM ($8.7MM AAV) contract that took up 15.3% of the Penguins\u2019 cap in the 2008-09 season. He won the Stanley Cup in that deal\u2019s first year, notably passing the 100-point threshold for the third time in his first four seasons, and scored 31 points in the \u201909 playoffs. MacKinnon didn\u2019t take up that much of Colorado\u2019s cap hit until 2023, signing his 8-year, $100.82MM ($12.6MM AAV), 15.09% of the Avs\u2019 books when the contract began. His previous 7-year deal only took up 8.63% in 2016; he won the Cup in the second-to-last year of that contract, making $6.3MM annually.<\/p>\n

Depending on how this progresses, which we remain in the early stages regarding this, it will definitely be a message notable to the league on how its young wonderkid goes about the money he takes. In the next four years, San Jose has other major young talent coming into the NHL at some point, a blessing given how well they\u2019ve performed in their NHL drafts, but it could also end up biting them financially. Along with Celebrini, they will need to address Will Smith<\/a> and goaltender Yaroslav Askarov<\/a> in 2026-27, Michael Misa<\/a>, Igor Chernyshov<\/a>, Sam Dickinson<\/a>, Mattias Havelid<\/a> in 2028-29, and Ivar Stenberg<\/a> in 2029-30. That\u2019s just their future RFAs signed to entry-level contracts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Macklin Celebrini has already cemented himself as an NHL star and with that, he is now weighing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4272,10669,385,4697,52353,835,99],"class_list":["post-766632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-macklin-celebrini","tag-newsstand","tag-nhl","tag-players","tag-rfa","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}