Sharks’ Celebrini fifth-youngest player in NHL history to reach 200 career points
Macklin Celebrini has found himself in rare air.
During the San Jose Sharks‘ 3-2 shootout loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday, Celebrini hit the 200-point milestone in his career, becoming the fifth-youngest player to reach that threshold.
Celebrini achieved the feat midway through the third period of the game, when an offensive zone sequence saw Will Smith pass the puck across the zone to Michael Kesselring, who had previously pinched up on the breakout rush and was still deep in the zone. Kesselring immediately bumped the puck towards Celebrini in the high slot, who faked the first shot to trick the defense and goalie before firing home a goal to cut Pittsburgh’s 2-1 lead in half and giving him his 200th career point.
Celebrini then followed it up with the primary assist on Mason Marchment’s game-tying goal with a bit over four minutes to go in the third period, giving him his 201st point.
With his 200th point, Celebrini became the fifth-youngest player to reach the milestone, doing so at the age of 20 years and 151 days. He joins some elite players in the process, with the four players ahead of him being Mario Lemieux (20 years, 133 days), Jimmy Carson (20 years, 107 days), Wayne Gretzky (19 years, 347 days) and Sidney Crosby (19 years, 207 days).
Admittedly, Celebrini and Crosby do have an advantage to get there in a similar amount of time to the likes of Gretzky and Lemieux, as the two have birthdays closer to the cut-off date for draft eligibility, with Celebrini’s being June 13th and Crosby’s being August 7th. That means that they spent their entire rookie seasons as 18-year-olds, while Gretzky (January 26th) turned 19 halfway through his first season, and Lemieux (October 5th) was 19 for most of his rookie season.
The biggest surprise of that bunch is Carson, who benefitted from a birthday close to the cut-off (July 20th), and also had a strong start to his NHL career with 286 points in his first three seasons (240 games). However, his pace slipped off well after that, with 275 points in his final 386 games. Carson was also part of the return in the trade that sent Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings.
The most surprising omission from this group at first glance would be Connor McDavid, but a collarbone injury that kept him out of half of his rookie season is a major reason why he did not get to 200 points quicker based on age.
