How a 19-Year-Old “KID” Is Taking Over The NHL

Macklin Celebrini is dominating the NHL and he's doing it at a level that only five players in the history of the sport have ever reached as a teenager. In his sophomore season for the San Jose Sharks, the 19-year-old center has just become the sixth teenager in NHL history to crack 100 points in a season, joining Wayne Gretzky, Dale Howarchuk, Mario Lemieux, Jimmy Carson and Sidney Crosby. His 115 points, 45 goals and 70 assists in 82 games, ranked fourth in the entire league, only behind Connor McDavid, Nathan McKinnon and Nikita Kucherov, names that headline every MVP ballot of the past decade. He single-handedly dragged one of the worst teams, or at least what used to be, into the playoff conversation, becoming so key that the Sharks were 2-15-3 when he failed to record a point. He was the youngest Canadian NHL player ever to compete at the Winter Olympics, and he led the 2026 Milano Cortina tournament in goals while winning silver. This is the full story. The hockey-obsessed dad who rehabs Steph Curry's ankles, the AAA team that cut him at age 10, the youngest Hobie Baker winner ever, and the sophomore campaign that even Crosby stops practice to talk about. Macklin Richard Celebrini was born on June 13, 2006, in North Vancouver, British Columbia. His father, Dr. Rick Celebrini, is not a typical hockey dad. Rick was a Canadian national team soccer player at the 1987 FIFA World Youth Championship, a four-time university champion defender at UBC and later a pro for the Vancouver 86ers, before breaking his ankle and pivoting into rehab sciences. He earned a PhD from UBC's Faculty of Medicine, and he rebuilt himself as one of the most respected sports medicine minds on the continent. He served as head of sports medicine for the Vancouver Whitecaps. He's consulted for the Canucks, the Mavericks, Seahawks, and Canadian Soccer Association, and managed the medical staff for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. In August of 2018, the Golden State Warriors hired him, and he's currently the Warriors vice president of player health and performance. The man who has worked daily with the likes of Steph Curry, Draymond Green, even Klay Thompson when he was with Golden State, and Steve Kerr. When the Warriors signed Rick, the family packed up and moved to Livermore, California, about 30 miles from what would become Macklin's eventual NHL home. That's the first link in a chain of coincidences that are so absurd, they sound fake. Macklin's mother Robin, a former UBC college soccer player, described by Macklin's youth coach Billy Copeland as an elite athlete herself and competitive, became the household's logistical center, shuttling four athletic kids to rinks and courts across the Bay, while Rick traveled with the Warriors. Macklin is the second of four children. His older brother Aiden is a defenseman drafted 171st overall by the Vancouver Canucks in 2023, and played alongside Macklin at Boston University. His younger brother RJ, 14, is already a hockey prospect in his own right, reportedly posting 52 goals and 115 points in 45 games for the North Shore Winter Club U-15 team. And his younger sister Charlie is a top tennis prospect at the ICL Academy. Growing up around the Warriors was Macklin's adolescence. Steve Kerr said it plainly. He was hanging around here as a kid, like 14. Draymond Green told ESPN, He's quiet but super confident and is not afraid to share that confidence with you. Green has privately compared Celebrini to LeBron James. Curry's take was more straight up. He works his butt off. I know he has no choice with the last name being Celebrini. The Warriors staff nicknamed Rick Sheriff Rick because, as coach David Beaufray put it, well, it doesn't matter what part of the country he's in, he's got his reach, making sure that they're following their regiments. Rick gamified childhood, setting up playground obstacle courses, critiquing his son's strides and Hawaiian sand, and once building a sprinting circuit inside an airport during a flight delay. Here was Rick's own take on what this environment gave Macklin. What it does is it demystifies it. It makes it more human and not so superhuman. One of the family's most wild moments came in 2022 when Rick was on the floor for Curry's finals MVP. Macklin was 15 and watching from the stance. Already training with Connor Bedard in North Vancouver the following summer. The full circle storyline writes itself. Rick joined the Warriors in 2018. The family moved to the Bay Area and six years later, the San Jose Sharks won the draft lottery and used the number one pick on the Celebrini kid who grown up 30 miles away. Rick now watches Macklin's games on his phone during Warriors team flights. There's a pic from August 20th of 2014 of an eight-year-old Macklin in a gap-toothed grin beside the Stanley Cup at the North Shore Winter Club, brought home by North Van native Martin Jones. He's been on this trajectory his entire life. Before he broke NCAA records, though, Macklin was a member at the North Shore Winter Club, an elite Vancouver hockey breeding ground whose alumni include Joe Sackick, Brett Hull, Paul Correa, Evander Kane, Martin Jones, and Connor Bedard. He started as a defenseman, so dominant that at the Brick Invitational, he won top defenseman as a 10-year-old, with coach John Calvano calling him a one-man breakout cheat code. Skills coach Cole Todd once got a call from a 12-year-old Macklin after a 10.30 p.m. rogue game asking to be picked up for on-ice work at 5.15 the next morning. Copeland said Macklin's, quote, give-a-f**k factor was extremely high at age five, comparing his intensity to prime Sackick and Evander Kane. And yet there was a genuine underdog moment here. As an underager trying out for NSWC's AAA squad, the coach cut him, saying that he wasn't offensively talented enough to be on the team. Beaupre compared it to Michael Jordan being cut from his high school varsity squad. Celebrini dropped to AA and dominated. That humility, that feeling that he still has to prove himself, that never left. Then his path got unorthodox. Rather than accept his rights with the Seattle Thunderbirds, who made him the number one overall pick of the 2021 WHL-US prospect draft, Macklin kept his NCAA eligibility and chose the Chicago Steel of the USHL. In 2022-2023, at age 16, he rewrote the record book, 46 goals and 86 points in 50 games, shattering Taylor Camarata's 11-year-old USHL record for points by a U-17 player, becoming the first U-17 ever to score 40 goals in a season and setting a Chicago Steel franchise record with 21 power play goals. He scored five goals in one game against the USA NTDP on February 18th of 2023, a first in the 23-year history of the franchise. He became the first player in the modern USHL's Tier 1 era to win Player of the Year, Forward of the Year, and Rookie of the Year in the same season. He did it all while playing through a shoulder injury that needed surgery after the season. Warriors personnel, including Steve Kerr and Draymond Green, flew to Geneva, Illinois in January of 2023 to watch him play and learn his Steel nickname, the Cheetah. Celebrini reclassified a year early to enroll at Boston University for the 2023-24 season, making him the youngest player in all of NCAA Division I men's hockey at 17. He joined his older brother Aiden on the Terriers' blue line and did something the sport had never seen. In 38 games, he scored 32 goals and 32 assists for 64 points. He recorded 23 goals in 23 Hockey East conference games, the first player in Hockey East history to average a goal per game in league play, and a single-season league goal record for a freshman. He shot 17.6 percent, took 182 shots, seventh nationally, he won 53.5 percent of his face-offs, and had a point in every BU win but one. He made the Hobie Hat Trick, the Hockey East Player of the Year, unanimously, Rookie of the Year, and Scoring Champion awards. AHCA First Team All-American, and the Sioux Falls Regional Most Outstanding Player as BU reached the Frozen Four before falling 2-1 in overtime to Denver. Then, on April 12th of 2024, the award committee named him the youngest Hobie Baker Memorial Award winner in the 44-year history of the trophy. He was only the fourth freshman ever to win it, after Paul Correa, Jack Eichel, and Adam Fantilli, and just the fourth BU player. He also became the fourth player ever to win both Hockey East Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year in the same season, joining Brian Leach, Paul Correa, and Jack Eichel. That's a list that tells you everything. Elite Prospects 2024 Draft Guide didn't beat around the bush. Macklin Celebrini is special. There's no other way to put it. The best draft-year college prospect we've ever scouted. NHL Central Scouting ranked him No. 1 wire-to-wire, no questions, through both the midterm and final rankings. Director Dan Maher called him, quote, a model of elite consistency. And an NHL all-star in the making. The 2024 NHL Entry Draft was held on June 28th of 2024 at The Sphere in Las Vegas, the first sporting event ever at the venue, drawing 14,220 fans. The San Jose Sharks have won the draft lottery on May 7th with 18.5% odds, their first-ever No. 1 overall pick after three previous No. 2s. Immediately after the lottery, Sharks GM Mike Rear was asked if he made up his mind on Celebrini. His reply? I would think so. And when the time came, the Sharks brought out franchise legend Joe Thornton to announce the pick. Celebrini hugged his mother, father, brother Aiden, sister Charlie, and 11-year-old RJ, and he signed a three-year entry-level contract on July 6th of 2024 at a $975,000 cap hit. And he spent two weeks that summer living with the Hughes family, Quinn, Jack, and Luke, to prepare for the NHL. When he showed up in San Jose, the Sharks placed him in the home of Joe Thornton, where he still lives. The on-air comparisons from the draft were outrageous. Central Scouting's John Williams pointed to Jonathan Taves. Celebrini himself named Patrice Bergeron as his model. Handolfo would later say Sidney Crosby. The consensus was a two-way franchise center. Not a flashy skill player, but a 200-foot student of the game with elite compete. Scouts drew a clear distinction from Bedard. Bigger, more physical, more complete. Celebrini's NHL debut on October 10th of 2024 versus St. Louis was one for the books. He scored on his first NHL shot at 7.01 of the first period, the fastest debut goal by a No. 1 overall pick since Mario Lemieux in 1984. He added an assist on Tyler Toffoli's goal. In that single game, he set two records, the youngest player in Sharks history to score in his NHL debut, and at 18 years and 119 days, the youngest player in NHL history with a two-point debut, breaking Shane Doan's long-held mark. Then, almost immediately, he suffered a hip or lower body injury against the Utah Mammoth that cost him the next 12 games. He came back on November 5th and never slowed down. His final 2024-2025 stat line in 70 games, 25 goals, 38 assists, 63 points, minus 31, 236 shots, which is the most of any rookie, and 19 minutes and 45 seconds of ice time per night. His 0.90 points per game led all NHL rookies and tied Bedard's Calder-winning 2023-2024 rate. His 5-on-5 points per 60 was 2.85, higher than Crosby's that same season. He led all NHL forwards in puck battle wins per game in the first half. The historical context is where it gets weird. At 18 years, 308 days, Celebrini became the third youngest rookie in NHL history to lead his team in scoring, behind only Crosby and Bedard. He was the second 18-year-old ever to factor in five consecutive team game-winning goals. Only Sidney Crosby had done it before. He became the first rookie since Conor McDavid to record 25 points in his first 25 games, only the 10th player in NHL history to do it at any age. He was the first rookie in the entire 2024-2025 NHL season with a hat-trick, which was April 9th at Minnesota, a 5-point night versus Marc-Andre Fleury, with teammate Will Smith assisting on all three goals. His Calder finish, third with 1,104 voting points, 11 first-place votes, was technically a loss to Lane Hudson, but the all-rookie team vote at forward was unanimous, 187 of 187 ballots. And the Sharks, still the worst team in the NHL at 20, 50, and 12, 52 points, with a 310-goal-against season, handed him the alternate captain's A before he could legally buy a drink. Then came the leap. Through 82 games of the 2025-2026 season, Celebrini posted 115 points, 45 goals, 70 assists, plus 9, good for 4th in the NHL and the highest point total by a teenager since Sidney Crosby's 120 in 2006 and 2007, a 19-year gap. He's the sixth teenager ever at 100 points, joining Gretzky, who had 137 in 1979 and 80, who had a Hart Trophy that year, Howarchuk, Lemieux, Jimmy Carson, and Crosby twice. He reached 100 in fewer games than Mario Lemieux did at the same age. The cleanest comparison is the Crosby one. Through 72 games at age 19, Crosby had 32 goals and 108 points. Celebrini had 38 goals and 101 points, outscoring the kid in goals, if not total points, without Evgeny Malkin on his line. McDavid, at 19, finished with 100 points in 82 games in his Art Ross Hart-winning 2016-2017. He turned 20 before the end of the year, just to clarify. But Celebrini beat that total, and the usage tells the story. Celebrini is on the ice for 46% of all Sharks' goals, the highest share by any teenager in NHL history, surpassing Gretzky's 45.5% mark from 1979 to 80. The league's top offensive driver in that metric this year is Conor McDavid, at 47.5% for the NHL-leading Oilers. Celebrini is one point percentage behind him, and doing it for a team that was fighting for a playoff spot. The numbers are elite across the board. Per NHL Edge and SportLogic microdata compiled by NBC Sports Bay Area, Celebrini leads every NHL forward in puck battle wins, 58. He leads every NHL forward in penalties drawn, with 19, and is tied for the lead in penalty differential, plus 9. He leads the NHL in game-time goal involvement, 11 goals, 15 assists, 26 total. He leads the league in mid-range goals, 23, and mid-range shots, 147. He leads the entire NHL in wrist shot goals, with 25. His hardest shot is 97.89 miles an hour, that's 7th among forwards. His average shot speed hits the 95th percentile. He ranks 4th among all forwards in total distance skated, at 270.03 miles, and has 178 speed bursts of over 20 miles an hour. He has 67 forced turnovers, that's 6th, 75 puck deflections, 4th, 495 puck recoveries, 5th, 40 takeaways, tied for 6th, and 43 primary assists, which is 5th in the NHL. Shang Ping called the profile a six-tool player who can skate, shoot, pass, stick handle, is physical, and has hockey IQ at an elite level. Elliott Friedman said that his puck-carrying profile mirrors McKinnon and McDavid. The Sharks are the most improved team in the NHL, adding 16 wins year over year. They were eliminated by an LA Kings win on April 13th with two games remaining, but they finished five points out of a playoff spot, carrying the second-worst goals against in the NHL. They sold out 21 home games this year versus just 11 last year, with attendance of 2,000 per game. This is exciting, I haven't really been through this before, Celebrini told the AP. His signature moments include a five-point night against the New York Rangers on October 23rd, a three-point third period against Pacific-leading Anaheim on April 1st, featuring a game-tying goal with a minute 39 remaining, and the primary assist on the winner just over a minute later. And a 13-game point streak from December 11th to January 10th with 27 points, which is the second-longest in Sharks franchise history. Oh, and now he holds the San Jose franchise record for most points in a single season with that 115. He just took over his billet dad, Jumbo Joe, in the last game of the season against the Winnipeg Jets on a snipe past Hellebuck. Celebrini's February 2026 trip to Milan produced one of the most historic Olympic performances in Canadian and Olympic hockey history. He was the youngest NHL player ever on a Canadian men's Olympic team, playing on the top line with Connor McDavid and Nathan McKinnon. He led the entire tournament in goals with five, finished second in scoring with 10 points in six games behind only McDavid, and was named to the tournament media all-star team. He became the first NHL player to score on a penalty shot at the Olympics versus France on February 15th. Canada lost 2-1 in overtime to the United States in the gold medal game, with Jack Hughes scoring the winner and Connor Hellebuck making 41 saves. Per his father, Macklin was inconsolable after the game. He was upset. He was upset at himself. He was upset at the results. It's impossible to overstate what leading the Olympic tournament in goals as a 19-year-old on the top line means as a baseline. Now, what makes that Olympic story remarkable is that Sidney Crosby, Canada's captain, remembers meeting Celebrini years ago in Halifax. He was an up-and-coming young player that a lot of people were talking about. Nathan McKinnon said, He is miles ahead of where I was at that age mentally and professionally. I think back sometimes to when I was even 21. I wish I knew half the stuff that I know now. That's a 30-year-old NHL superstar saying that a 19-year-old is already in a better spot than he was toward the beginning of his own career. The quotes are pretty much never-ending, and they tell the whole story. Sharks head coach Ryan Warsawski on his MVP. Mack, we see it. He's our MVP. I think he's very deserving of that. On the puck battle data, you can just tell by his motor and his competitiveness. That doesn't surprise me that he's in the top of the league in that category. You don't need the statistics to tell you that. You just watch the eye test. His teammate Alexander Wenberg said, We can keep talking about him all day. He's unbelievable. He's a game changer. He's the leader right here. He's stepping up and making key plays. He's making the difference. He just has a little bit extra. His competitiveness and his full compete is just different from the rest of us. Veteran enforcer Ryan Reeves said, He does everything in all three zones. He's in on half our points. He plays hard in the D zone. He plays big minutes. He plays against top lines. He's a key part of the power play. He's becoming a leader in the room. Even Florida Panthers agitator Brad Marchand reportedly called Celebrini a dog. In hockey, that's one of the highest possible compliments. Not bad from the rat. Celebrini himself is the same person he was at age 11, asking his skills coach in the car whether he'd get drafted into the Western Hockey League someday. On leaving the league in puck battles, it's all just compete. I'd rather have the puck than chase the puck around. On the 100-point milestone, he said, It's pretty cool. It was a goal of mine. I didn't really think I'd do it this year. I have a bunch of amazing teammates to help me get here. On trying to cover McDavid, he said, He's the best player in the league, and he's also the fastest. So if you don't really slow him down, he's just going to skate by you. I watched it. I loved watching it when I was a fan, but super frustrating when you play against him. It's pretty clear Macklin's compete is on another level, whether it's from any of his teammates' quotes or just the eye test, like his coach Warsawski said, this kid just wants to win. Take this reaction after a loss to the Sens in mid-March as an example. Brady Kachuk potted an empty netter that iced an Ottawa win. Cameras caught Celebrini obliterating his stick on the post. It wasn't a show. It was a 19-year-old franchise player boiling over because his team had lost a game that he'd want to drag home himself. I'd rather have the puck than chase the puck around. Yeah, that sentence is his entire game. Pull the full thread, and the story is just absurd. A Croatian-Canadian grandfather from the island of Crick immigrates to Winnipeg. His son Rick plays Canadian national soccer, breaks his ankle, pivots to rehab medicine, builds a career as one of the top physiotherapists in professional sport, and gets hired by the Golden State Warriors, moving his family to the Bay Area in 2018. That son's second child is an 11-year-old hockey phenom who grows up in locker rooms with Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson, who learns that this kid's got a nickname called the Cheetah when they fly to Illinois to watch him play. Six years later, the San Jose Sharks, the only NHL team in the Bay Area, win the draft lottery. They draft him first overall. He moves in with Joe Thornton, the former Hart Trophy-winning Sharks captain, who is now his de facto billet parent, and Salabrini's jersey sales have outpaced every Sharks player since Thornton himself. He's six foot tall, 190 pounds, left shot, and unhurried. He has, quote, a low center of gravity and quick stick. Per one scouting source quoted in NBC Sports, he lives with a Hall of Fame center. He trains in the summer with Conor Bedard and in the family home with a father whose daily workplace is Chase Center. He's compared by Central Scouting to Jonathan Taves, by a head coach to Sidney Crosby, by Draymond Green to LeBron James, and by his own words to Patrice Bergeron. The most important takeaway isn't that Salabrini is gross. It's what the season shows about the modern NHL's inability to crown generational talent when it's playing for a losing team. McDavid, Kudurov, and McKinnon will split the Hart Trophy vote on playoff teams. Salabrini will get significant down-ballot support and will almost without a doubt be a finalist. But in pretty much any other decade, his 46% share of his team's goals, his 100-point teenage season, his tournament-leading Olympic goal total, his 58 league-leading puck battle wins, and his NHL-leading clutch metrics would be a no-brainer win. Only two players in history have won the Hart Trophy before turning 20, Gretzky and Crosby. Salabrini fits the profile. You get a playoff roster around him and the trophy's his. But instead, his legacy moment is happening a bit more under the radar. In a building that was half-empty two years ago for a franchise that hasn't won a playoff series since 2019. That's the story under the story. The kid who got cut from AAA at 10, who played defense for half his youth career, who chose BU over Vancouver, who scored on his first NHL shot, who led the Olympics in goals as a teenager. I mean, the list goes on. His contract comes up July 1st of 2026. Agent industry insiders, per The Athletic, project 20 million AAV, a number that would reset the league's young star market. Within two years, when the Sharks are back in the playoffs and the rest of the sport catches up to what the Warriors organization has known since he was 14, that narrative is gonna flip. The kid in the Bay Area will be the face of the sport. He already is. The numbers just haven't been framed loudly enough yet. Hey, thanks for watching, everyone. And if you want to hear the story of how an undrafted goalie went from being completely overlooked to becoming a Stanley Cup champion and a Hall of Famer, check out our video on Ed Belfort. And don't forget to like, subscribe, and drop your favorite Celebrity moment in the comments. We'll see you in the next one.