Report: Sharks ‘all but certain’ to name Macklin Celebrini captain
The San Jose Sharks have a true one-of-one franchise player and leader in superstar center Macklin Celebrini, but at least for right now, they do not have a captain.
According to a report from Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now, the Sharks are “all but certain” to make Celebrini’s leadership of the club official by naming him the team’s captain at some point before opening night.
The Sharks have not had a captain since Logan Couture, who received the distinction when Joe Pavelski left San Jose ahead of the 2019-20 season. Couture held the captaincy until April 2025, when he announced the end of his playing career due to a chronic injury that held him out of action for the entire 2024-25 season and all but six games of the year prior.
Celebrini, a British Columbia native who was chosen with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, broke into the league as an 18-year-old with 63 points in 70 games as the Sharks finished at the bottom of the league standings.
In his second season, both Celebrini and the Sharks took massive leaps forward, as Celebrini appeared in all 82 regular season games and racked up 115 points on 45 goals and 70 assists, good enough to finish fourth in the NHL in scoring while leading San Jose to the doorstep of the postseason in a bid that fell short in the season’s final weeks.
Celebrini finished fourth in the voting for the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player, and after he became eligible to sign a contract extension on July 1, general manager Mike Grier wasted little time in securing Celebrini’s services for the long haul.
The two parties inked a five-year contract extension that will kick in beginning in 2027-28 and carries a salary cap hit of $18.8 million that is currently slated to make Celebrini the highest paid player in the NHL when the contract gets underway.
The Sharks are slated to get their 2026-27 campaign underway on October 1 by welcoming the 2024 and 2025 Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers to the Bay Area.
