- Sheng Peng reports Macklin Celebrini is “all but certain” to be named Sharks captain
- Celebrini would be San Jose’s 11th full-time captain and its first playing captain since Logan Couture
- Read below for the 115-point season that made the decision easy
Macklin Celebrini getting the Sharks captaincy is down to paperwork.
Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now checked in with a source weeks out from training camp, circling back on a May report from ESPN’s Emily Kaplan that had the 20-year-old “all but guaranteed” to get the C. The answer he got was blunt.
“It’s too obvious. It’s all but certain.”
An announcement is expected before the season starts. Celebrini would be the 11th full-time captain in franchise history and the first playing captain since Logan Couture in 2023-24. Here’s the version of No. 71 that San Jose has been waiting on:
Mike Grier has handled his first overall pick carefully since taking him in 2024. Celebrini got an A before last season and no more than that.
Then he went out and put up 115 points, wiping out Joe Thornton’s single-season franchise record and dragging a bad roster to a 34-point jump in the standings. He was the first teenager since Sidney Crosby in 2006-07 to finish as a Ted Lindsay Award finalist.
Take a look at all 115 of them:
The international résumé is just as loud. Celebrini was the first teenager ever named to a Team Canada roster for an NHL-headlined Olympics, and he skated on the top line there. He wore the C for Canada at the World Championships and led the group with six goals and 14 points in 10 games.
His five-year, $94 million extension kicks in for 2027-28 at an $18.8 million cap hit, the highest number in the league right now.
Crosby, the player Celebrini grew up copying, got the Penguins captaincy as a 19-year-old on May 31, 2007. San Jose waited a little longer with theirs.
Grier spent the summer adding pieces around Celebrini, and the last item on the list before camp opens is a letter on his chest.
