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On Monday night, Macklin Celebrini picked up a pair of assists as the San Jose Sharks dropped a 4-3 decision in his first-ever NHL game in his hometown of Vancouver.
That’s already Celebrini’s eighth-career multi-point game and sends him into the Christmas break with an impressive 25 points in 25 games.
He has competition in the Calder Trophy race, but the 18-year-old is the only contender producing at a point-per-game rate. And while he certainly isn’t a finished product by any stretch, his competitive motor runs hot at all times. If he keeps improving at his current rate in the second half, he’ll have a real crack at succeeding Connor Bedard as a No. 1 overall pick named rookie of the year right after being drafted.
Given that those players are competing against rivals who can be as old as 25 in the Calder race, the true freshmen don’t prevail very often. Before Bedard, the last NHL player to do it was Auston Matthews in 2016-17. Five others have done it in the salary-cap era: Aaron Ekblad in 2015, Nathan MacKinnon (2014), Gabriel Landeskog (2012), Jeff Skinner (2011) and Patrick Kane (2008).
Celebrini is one of just three players from his draft class who has played in the NHL this year, and the only one to have any points at all. The others were No. 13 pick Jett Luchanko, who got into four games with the Philadephia Flyers before he was sent back to junior, and seventh-rounder Nikita Prishchepov. The 20-year-old was called up from the AHL for 10 games when the injury-ridden Colorado Avalanche were undermanned at forward.
Related: NHL Calder Trophy Tracker: Celebrini, Michkov And Hutson Begin To Separate
2024 NHL Draft Picks At World Juniors
Making the NHL is tough for 18-year-olds. But cracking World Junior Championship rosters in draft-plus-one years is not a slam dunk either, especially for players in the deeper North American prospect pools.
This year, there was plenty of second-guessing those braintrusts’ decisions to pass over some highly touted 2024 first-rounders, including Beckett Sennecke, Carter Yakemchuk and Zayne Parekh for Canada and E.J. Emery on the U.S. side.
Canada does have six players from the 2024 NHL draft on its roster, including Luchanko, top-10 pick Berkly Catton, defenseman Sam Dickinson and goalie Carter George, a late second-round pick by the Los Angeles Kings.
The U.S. roster features eight players from the 2024 draft, including their top three first-rounders: No. 12 Zeev Buium from the…