Get Hype (Or Not): The San Jose Sharks, Macklin Celebrini is already one of the best edition
They may be hot trash, but at least they'll be watchable hot trash.
Starting today, Monday though Friday, I will preview each NHL team the only way I know how: yapping indiscriminately about them. Each piece will be divided by sections: a one-sentence summary, a few good stats (taken from the previous season), an honest overview, why you should be hyped, why you shouldn’t, roster building by the numbers, and the verdict on where we can expect to see them finish.
One sentence summary
Are the San Jose Sharks the Montreal Canadians of Buffalo Sabres, or the Buffalo Sabres of Montreal Canadians?
A few good stats
Record: 20-50-12 (52 points)
Points Percentage: 31.7 (Rank: 32)
Team Plus/Minus: -105 (Rank: 32)
Save Percentage: 88.1 (Rank: 30)
Shooting Percentage: 9.4 (Rank: 29)
PDO: .983 (Rank: 29)
xSPAR: 5.6 less points in the standings than a replacement level team (Rank: 321)
San Jose can’t get any worse. In terms of shot volume (blue), shot quality (yellow), shot outcomes (green), and netminding against shot outcomes (pink), it was all Worst Parts of the Bible stuff this season. But they’re rebuilding, and so none of this should be all that shocking. The teams that tried to be something more — like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Nashville — are the teams that should be embarrassed.
Overview
The San Jose Sharks may have been the worst team in the league last year, but easy punchlines have the clearest expiration dates2. That’s the mentality GM Mike Grier has brought to the table. They’re not pretending to be anything they’re not. They didn’t sign any fading vets to a lot of term, and they didn’t outsmart themselves at the draft. There’s no real formula for a proper rebuild (although there is certainly the right philosophy). But San Jose looks positioned to do something like what Montreal and Kent Hughes have done. So sure, the Sharks are a laughing stock. But for how long? They go hard at the draft, so the timeline is shorter than you’d think.
The case for hype
If I’m a Sharks fan, I’m super stoked. Why? Because Macklin Celebrini is on my team. Celebrini reminds me of Boy Scout Nathan MacKinnon. Or maybe he’s Placenta Crosby. These analogies are terrible, but so are comps. No two players are ever alike, and there is simply no one like Celebrini. Just see for yourself.
I was high on Celebrini just like everyone else. A “rich man’s Matty Beniers” I called him, not realizing that this was merely the foundation underneath the flooring. But after catching him through his first full season, it’s easy to see why the comps keep getting dumber and dumber — in a good way. His transition ability is certainly reminiscent of MacKinnon. The way he weaves possession in and out of all three zones is already S-Tier stuff. But unlike MacKinnon (sorry Nate), there’s a genuine commitment to defense3. Not just defense, but actively turning defense into offense. I’m not talking about the coaching soundboard. I’m talking about turning a puckjack with tight defensive positioning into outnumbered situations. Just look at this abject nonsense.
Celebrini is already an absurd talent with an absurd ceiling, and so far he’s only been surrounded by an abyss. If that abyss turns into a garden, however tenuously maintained, the league will be put on notice.
But, also, Michael Misa
I never understood the manufactured narrative about Anton Frondell, Brady Martin, Porter Martone, or Caleb Desnoyers threatening the second overall spot behind Matthew Schaefer. Misa was very much in a tier with Schaefer. For some reason that’s not the narrative that draft writers ran with. But make no mistake. Misa is the truth.
There’s a good chance he’ll make the team too. He has all the tools, with his ability to play with pace, and ability to read plays with precision and under duress will make for one of the nastiest one-two punches in the league.
San Jose has a type when it comes to their forwards: super talented, but not stereotypes. Misa was no mere goal scorer.
This is not just about two high level prospects on an NHL roster. It’s about two, legit gamebreakers down the middle. The last two teams to punch up their center depth to this degree — Edmonton and New Jersey — not only dug their way out of the basement, but became elite teams. Sure, neither Celebrini nor Misa will turn into Connor McDavid, but Celebrini already looks like his ceiling will extend beyond Jack Hughes, with Misa being the x-factor here. His game is a little more mercurial than Hughes or Nico Hischier, but don’t be surprised if he ends up somewhere in the middle.
The case against hype
Everyone will say the blueline, but I disagree. Sure it’s not playoff caliber. But San Jose got a lot better. In fact, we’ll break down the roster by the numbers in a bit. But the corpse of Marc-Edouard Vlasic and the Corsi stain that is Cody Ceci made the Sharks a legit tirefire on the backend. Addition by substraction improved it. Addition by addition (Orlov, and, to a certain extent, Klingberg) further improved it. However, the real problem is offensive depth. Behind Celebrini is an island of malfunctioning misfit toys. San Jose has prospects of middling and/or defective quality (Ty Dellandrea and Carl Grundestrom), and veterans of middling and/or defective quality (Barclay Goodrow and Jeff Skinner). The other factor is Ryan Warsofsky. Will his inexperience hold the team back? There’s no way to say for now, but this season will be something of a litmus test since the Sharks are at least better on paper than they were last season. If they get better on the ice too, that’ll be a feather in the proverbial cap for the young coach.
By the numbers
Believe it or not, San Jose — at least statistically — appears to have unlocked mediocrity instead of tank mode. (Louis Boulet’s roster builder relies on expected SPAR, which is basically Wins Above Replacement in standing points form. )
What’s most interesting here is that San Jose appears to have found a decent blueline. Dmitry Orlov may not be what he once was, but he’s still a value add, which bodes well for a theoretical pairing next to either Mario Ferraro or Timothy Liljegren.
To their credit, Shakir Mukhamadullin and Jack Thompson have somehow managed to post strong defensive numbers on an extremely weak defensive team. That bodes well for the meager upgrades. That’s where defensive prospect Sam Dickinson becomes somethin of a question mark in the best way. The CHL is no longer good enough for him. Does San Jose give him the Leo Carlsson treatment? Play him a select amount of games and manage his minutes until he starts to figure out the pace?
The verdict: Sharks finish 26th
I suspect this season will have Buffalo Sabres vibes from two season ago when it looked like the Sabres were finally on the cusp. Sharks having a semi-decent blueline, with Celebrini and potentially Misa anchoring the top six — combined with the Yaroslav Askarov factor — means there’s something to genuinely work with. Again, this is less about the generic hype of top prospects, and about the specific hype of San Jose’s impending center depth. One-two punches are the kind of tides that lift all boats. The other issue is the classic PDO factor. San Jose ranking so low in shooting and save percentage is something that can shift with the wind. Again, I’m not expecting it, but I do think their offense can outplay the percentages on some nights4.
This season, like the ones before it, is all about the future. Grier and his amateur scouts will be paying attention to the big, slick-footed left winger Ryan Roobroeck (OHL) and right-handed defender Keaton Verhoeff (WHL) ahead of the 2026 draft. Meanwhile, prospects like Quentin Musty and Igor Chernyshov (who I was a huge fan of; so much so I had him ranked #10 on my 2024 big board) project to continue their forward momentum. The Sharks aren’t making the playoffs, obviously. But they won’t be a walk in the park for opponents for this year either.
Further reading
Sheng Pang at San Jose Hockey Now.
Curtis Pashelka at The Mercury News.
Since 2007, only five teams have ever been projected to be worse.
Buffalo is really testing the limits of this, granted.
This is not a slight on MacKinnon. Just that I think he’s sometimes mentioned in the same breath as McDavid and Gretzky when he’s more Ovechkin IMO.
Looking at Warsofsky’s coaching impacts per Micah Blake McCurdy’s data reveals a coach who wants to have fun for BOTH teams. Last season he didn’t have the blueline to offset the damages. This season he does.
David, I like your approach. This should be a very interesting series.