{"id":456977,"date":"2026-02-13T17:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/456977\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T17:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:21:12","slug":"is-macklin-celebrini-the-best-player-in-the-nhl-right-now-one-of-his-team-canada-teammates-thinks-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/456977\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Macklin Celebrini the best player in the NHL right now? One of his Team Canada teammates thinks so"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is Macklin Celebrini the best player in the NHL right now? One of his Team Canada teammates thinks so<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Macklin Celebrini has arrived at the 2026 Winter Olympics just in time.<\/p>\n

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The NHL’s best teenager in a long, long time plays for the San Jose Sharks<\/a>, a team that won’t generate him as many headlines as some others might. But there, in Milan, he plays for Team Canada. Headlines won’t be a problem.<\/p>\n

Neither will his game. Celebrini is one of the best hockey players on the planet, just 19 years old.<\/p>\n

And shoot, he might not even be “one of the best.”<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Chloe Kim’s silver medal has some controversy<\/a><\/p>\n

His Canadian teammate, the Colorado Avalanche<\/a> superstar Nathan MacKinnon, thinks Celebrini might already be at the top.<\/p>\n

“I mean, he’s the truth,” MacKinnon told ESPN<\/a>. “He’s going to be the best player in this league for a long time. He might already be there.”<\/p>\n

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Celebrini is on the same team right now as Connor McDavid, the generally accepted best player on the planet. And MacKinnon, who is right on McDavid’s tail. And Sidney Crosby, one of the game’s most legendary players.<\/p>\n

His teammates have no doubt he belongs.<\/p>\n

“Honestly? He doesn’t need my help much,” MacKinnon added to ESPN.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0USA curling’s Danny Casper doesn’t let GBS health issue slow him down<\/a><\/p>\n

Celebrini is already on the score sheet. He floated in front of net and deflected a puck perfectly past the goalie to score against Czechia.<\/p>\n

Most likely, he’ll score again. Most likely, he’ll have more Olympics with Team Canada. Most likely, his name will go down in history.<\/p>\n

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It’s early, yes. But Celebrini has arrived, ready to meet the moment, more than capable of all kinds of greatness.<\/p>\n

More Olympics news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is Macklin Celebrini the best player in the NHL right now? One of his Team Canada teammates thinks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[3189,144,155,5,501,517,4,168,768,3037],"class_list":{"0":"post-456977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-2026-winter-olympics","9":"tag-colorado-avalanche","10":"tag-connor-mcdavid","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-macklin-celebrini","13":"tag-nathan-mackinnon","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-san-jose-sharks","16":"tag-sidney-crosby","17":"tag-team-canada"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116064477705708814","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456977","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=456977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}