It did not take long for Macklin Celebrini to make an impact in his first competitive game in a San Jose Sharks uniform on Friday.
Playing for the first time in nearly four months, the 18-year-old Celebrini scored a third-period power-play goal and finished with five shots in the Sharks’ 3-2 win over the Utah Hockey Club to start the Rookie Faceoff in El Segundo.
Forward Ethan Cardwell scored the game-winning goal at the 16:09 mark of the third period as the Sharks earned a come-from-behind victory at the Toyota Performance Center to start the event, which features prospects from seven NHL teams.
Celebrini’s goal came at the 5:42 mark of the third. He started the sequence by winning a faceoff inside the Utah zone before he drifted back to the blue line, collected the puck, skated along the wall, and fed it back to defenseman Luca Cagnoni.
CELEBRINI POWER PLAY GOAL 2-2 #SJSharks pic.twitter.com/V9U9DgxJrT
— TEAL TOWN USA – A San Jose Sharks Podcast (@TEALTOWNUSA) September 13, 2024
Cagnoni then skated along the blue line before he passed it back to Celebrini, who faked a one-timer, took a stride, and fired the puck past Utah goalie Anson Thornton.
Forward Luke Grainger scored an even-strength goal in the first period, and goalie Georgi Romanov made 18 saves for the Sharks, who finished with 47 shots on net against Utah, a franchise that features new ownership after it was relocated from Arizona to Salt Lake City this offseason.
All eyes, though, were on Celebrini, who became the first player to be taken No. 1 overall by the Sharks at the NHL Draft in Las Vegas in June.
The 2024 Hobey Baker Award winner began the game centering the Sharks’ top line with Kasper Halttunen and childhood friend Carson Wetsch on his wings. Celebrini was also the No. 1 power-play unit with Will Smith, Quentin Musty, Collin Graf, and Cagnoni.
Celebrini showed off his quick release on more than one occasion and, on the power play, used his skating to often lead entries into the offensive zone.
The game was Celebrini’s first since May 5, when he played an exhibition with Team Canada against Austria before the IIHF World Championships. Celebrini was initially supposed to play with Canada throughout the tournament, held in Czechia, but the team brought in more NHL veterans to bolster the roster, and Celebrini and Adam Fantilli were bumped off.
Celebrini was then asked by the NHL to stop in Secaucus, N.J., for the draft lottery on his way home from Europe. He did, and that’s where he saw, like everyone else, that he would become a Shark.
Now, it’s likely, but not guaranteed, that Celebrini will also be on the Sharks’ top power-play unit once the regular season begins on Oct. 10 at home against the St. Louis Blues. But that’s more than four weeks away. Celebrini said Wednesday that he simply wants to “have some fun kind of build relationship with my new teammates, and just enjoy going to L.A. for a couple games.”
The Sharks’ front office, too, doesn’t expect Celebrini or fellow top prospect Smith, who will also likely have a spot on the team’s opening-day 23-man roster, to be in peak form in September.
The Sharks will play the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. before closing the event with a game against the Colorado Avalanche on Monday at 11:30 a.m.
“You want to see them play a little bit free, allow their skill to come out,” new assistant general manager Ryane Clowe told the Sharks Audio Network when asked about Smith and Celebrini. “They have the puck a lot on their stick. They’re creative. They want to make plays. They’ll make plays in tight areas, and I think as we go along, the (way) we want see them develop is to make sure they’re putting their work before their skill, and allow their skill to come out.
“But they’ll be fine. As we go along, even these next couple of days, you’ll see them really step up.”
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