{"id":456900,"date":"2026-02-13T15:48:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T15:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/456900\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T15:48:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T15:48:27","slug":"is-macklin-celebrini-one-of-nhls-best-players-nathan-mackinnon-buys-hype-at-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/456900\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Macklin Celebrini one of NHL\u2019s best players? Nathan MacKinnon buys hype at Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is Macklin Celebrini one of NHL\u2019s best players? Nathan MacKinnon buys hype at Olympics<\/a> appeared first on ClutchPoints<\/a>. Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Team Canada smoked Czechia 5-0 in their first game at the 2026 Milan Olympics. NHL players are back in the fold, which puts Canada and the US on a collision course for the Gold. Macklin Celebrini scored the first goal for Canada on Thursday<\/a>, which had Nathan MacKinnon<\/a> heaping insane praise<\/a> on the 19-year-old.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI mean, he\u2019s the truth,\u201d MacKinnon told ESPN\u2019s Ryan S. Clark. \u201cHe\u2019s going to be the best player in this league for a long time. He might already be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacKinnon is not the only former MVP impressed with Celebrini. Sidney Crosby, Team Canada\u2019s captain<\/a>, spoke with Clark about Celebrini\u2019s play in the first Olympic game. \u201cHe was an up-and-coming young player that a lot of people were talking about. Between hearing that and then seeing him on the ice a little bit. I think he was injured the first time I met him, but he did go on the ice for a little bit and you could see his skill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celebrini is putting together an MVP case with the San Jose Sharks<\/a> in the NHL. He is fourth in the NHL with 81 points, behind Connor McDavid, Nikita Kucherov, and MacKinnon. None of his Sharks teammates has more than 39 points, a mark held by Will Smith.<\/p>\n

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Canada brought Celebrini over as the only teenager on their team. They left 20-year-old Connor Bedard and 18-year-old Matthew Schaefer, both fellow No. 1 overall picks, at home in favor of veterans. But Celebrini forced their hands, putting up an insane season before turning 20 years old. He proved Team Canada right by scoring their first goal at the Olympics.<\/p>\n

Canada has Gold Medal aspirations after winning the 4 Nations Face-Off last year. And adding Celebrini to their elite forward unit makes them the favorites at the tournament. Canada plays on Friday afternoon against Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Related: Blue Jays\u2019 John Schneider sets record straight on Canada-USA hockey amid Winter Olympics<\/a><\/p>\n

Related: Mark Stone makes honest Olympics admission after Canada\u2019s 5-0 Czechia drubbing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is Macklin Celebrini one of NHL\u2019s best players? Nathan MacKinnon buys hype at Olympics appeared first on ClutchPoints.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1116,19,508,155,55489,5,501,374,517,55157,4,1335,168,768,3037,507],"class_list":["post-456900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-cale-makar","tag-canada","tag-connor-bedard","tag-connor-mcdavid","tag-espns-ryan-s-clark","tag-hockey","tag-macklin-celebrini","tag-matthew-schaefer","tag-nathan-mackinnon","tag-nbc-olympics","tag-nhl","tag-nikita-kucherov","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sidney-crosby","tag-team-canada","tag-will-smith"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116064112027123316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}