signed center Macklin Celebrini<\/a> to a five-year extension with an $18.8 million AAV.<\/p>\nDom Luszczyszyn: There\u2019s been a lot of sticker shock this summer when it comes to contracts. It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s RFAs or UFAs, everyone is getting paid \u2014 often a little too much. That\u2019s the nature of the current salary landscape with a rapidly exploding cap, where every franchise has more space to spend than ever before.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, though, Macklin Celebrini\u2019s extension does not qualify in the \u201coverpaid\u201d category. Quite the contrary, actually. Even on what will be the league\u2019s richest deal when it starts in 2027-28, Celebrini will be a slight bargain at $18.8 million per season.<\/p>\n
Considering recent deals signed for Leo Carlsson ($18 million AAV, five years) and Connor Bedard ($15 million AAV, five years), overpaying future superstars has been en vogue this summer. The same will likely apply to Adam Fantilli, who\u2019s rumored to come in around $13 million or $14 million. They\u2019re deals that each player could grow into, but there\u2019s a stronger chance that it\u2019s an overpay throughout. That\u2019s not the case for Celebrini, whose market value trumps what he\u2019s being paid: On a five-year deal, it\u2019s $20.6 million. On Day 1, this deal is already good business.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a real chance it will look even better, too.<\/p>\n
Celebrini is far from a finished product and has all the tools to take his game to even further heights than the ones he already flashed last year, when he finished fourth in Hart Trophy voting. The defensive toolkit suggests further growth to one day become the game\u2019s most complete player and he is the obvious heir-apparent to Connor McDavid as a potential future Best Player In The World.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s Celebrini\u2019s ceiling, as a real threat to be a consistent plus-30 Net Rating player during his prime \u2014 just as McDavid was. If he\u2019s already a bargain now with a projected trajectory just north of plus-20, he\u2019ll be an absolute steal if his game jumps to where many believe it could.<\/p>\n
In a summer where many less efficient deals were signed, including some of Celebrini\u2019s peers, the Sharks got a great deal \u2014 even if it may not look like it at first glance.<\/p>\n
Grade: A-<\/p>\n
Shayna Goldman: If anyone should be paid the maximum, it should be rising stars in the primes of their careers, and few are as valuable as Celebrini.<\/p>\n
It took Celebrini two seasons to jump into the Hart Trophy conversation. His all-around game \u2014 between his dynamic play in transition, high-end playmaking, and already-elite shot \u2014 almost single-handedly dragged the Sharks to the playoffs way ahead of schedule. Now, at 20, he isn\u2019t just one of the most promising players in the league loaded with potential. Celebrini has established himself as an offensive force, and is still likely a few years away from his peak value. That is worth every penny in San Jose.<\/p>\n
By Year 2 of this contract, Celebrini should already be worth that $18.8 million price tag. So those next three years should all deliver surplus value. That\u2019s the bar to compare to \u2014 not the fact that past superstars, such as Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby, have been underpaid for so much of their careers. Or that other recent RFA extensions, such as those for Ivan Demidov and Logan Cooley, look insanely team-friendly.<\/p>\n
Flyers GM Daniel Bri\u00e8re really changed the game this summer with that five-year, $18 million AAV offer sheet for Leo Carlsson. And it\u2019s about time, because the market seriously needed a reset, especially as the salary cap has ticked up. With that signing, RFAs such as Celebrini gained a lot of leverage. The dollars and cents are starting to line up with superstar ceilings, and the lengths are a lot more team-friendly. By sticking to a five-year term, Celebrini, Bedard, and Carlsson all avoid boxing themselves into a 2026 salary cap, and have the chance to cash in again.<\/p>\n
Could this limit the Sharks\u2019 flexibility? It\u2019s easy to say yes, considering the magnitude of this contract. The real problem will be the overpayments<\/a> around Celebrini\u2019s contract. So it helps that this team now has a more concise outlook around its most important player as it keeps building toward the early stages of its playoff window.<\/p>\nGrade: A-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The contract The San Jose Sharks signed center Macklin Celebrini to a five-year extension with an $18.8 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,835,99],"class_list":["post-791821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791821","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=791821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}