I’ve been watching Macklin Celebrini play for a while now. I’ve been trying to tell people when you try to hold other players up to his standard, like Gavin McKenna in his freshman season at Penn State, don’t. He’s his own entity. He is a cut above. He’s a lot like Sidney Crosby was all those years ago, he just took a different path. I talked about it briefly on TSN 590 yesterday. 

Celebrini has a drive to be the best. The more you talk to him the more you see it. When he had a chance to be around the Golden State Warriors, I believe this helped him. Who gets to do that? The prospect doesn’t like to talk a lot about his training, and that’s fine, but he lets his playing do the talking. 

A lot of players have signature games at Madison Square Garden. He put up a five-spot there. That was the second in his young career. His second hat trick as well. I can see the difference in his play. 

The Sharks star is tied for 6th in the league in scoring. He’s on a bad team. Imagine him on a team full of stars. He can play anywhere in the lineup. He could replace a few players on Hockey Canada’s roster or he can pretend to be an extra and work his way in. It might be like Cale Makar and Hockey Canada in the World Juniors back in the day. Same premise.

At 19, he plays like a mature player. At the NHL Combine, he weighed in at 197 pounds. He wow’d everyone with his fitness. Well, now that fitness is elite and instead of bulking up, he’s doing the opposite, he already had a great base and now he’s getting the most out of his off-season conditioning. 

Canada will have a stacked team for the 2026 Olympics, but I think Celebrini has to be there. I can’t imagine them having a roster without him on it but you never know. Teams have until December 31st for their final rosters. The preliminary rosters should be handed in by all countries now. Canada hasn’t done it yet and Sweden hasn’t either. Not sure about the others. Let’s see how it all shakes out.