As anticipated, Macklin Celebrini is a San Jose Shark. He’s the primary general choose within the 2024 NHL Draft, heading to San Jose to start his main league profession, seemingly subsequent season.
Celebrini is coming off a freshman season at Boston College that will likely be considered one of the spectacular in NCAA historical past. The Vancouver native entered tonight because the consensus No. 1 choose after accumulating 15 collegiate honors all earlier than his 18th birthday.
He was one of many best two-way threats within the nationwide circuit this season, ending third in NCAA scoring with 64 factors (32 objectives, 32 assists) in 38 video games. His 1.68 factors per sport have been second solely to Boston Faculty’s Will Smith, who he’ll seemingly crew up with on the Sharks subsequent yr after the latter signed his entry-level contract final month.
Of their 2024 NHL Draft Information, Elite Prospects known as Celebrini “the very best draft-year faculty prospect we’ve ever scouted” with “franchise heart potential.” He’s not seen as fairly as dynamic an offensive expertise as final yr’s franchise-altering choice, Chicago’s Connor Bedard, however he’s a bonafide first-line heart with a watch for the Selke Trophy in his future.
Whereas the Sharks have completed properly to rebuild a beforehand empty prospect pool during the last couple of years below normal supervisor Mike Grier, this can seemingly be seen looking back because the cornerstone level of their rebuild. Very similar to the Blackhawks, he gained’t change their fortunes instantly in his rookie season with a severely understaffed group of defensemen and plenty of of his younger teammates nonetheless within the improvement stage, however he needs to be seen as one of many favorites for subsequent yr’s Calder Trophy and shouldn’t look misplaced averaging north of 17-18 minutes per sport subsequent season.
That’s if the 6-foot, 196-pound heart opts to not return to BU for his sophomore season, in fact. Nonetheless, the final consensus is that he’ll be signing his rookie deal this summer season and suiting up for the Sharks come October.