After being named to Canada's Olympic team, Macklin Celebrini burns Wild again: Takeaways
The young star and the Sharks completed a 3-0 season series sweep of Minnesota on Wednesday afternoon with a 4-3 shootout win.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The good news is the Minnesota Wild once again rallied from a two-goal deficit in the third period to salvage a point against the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday.
The other good news? The Wild won’t have to face those pesky Sharks again this regular season.
Macklin Celebrini and the young group from Silicon Valley could be thorns in the side of the Wild — and every NHL team, for that matter — for many years to come as the hard-working, well-structured group completed a 3-0 season series sweep of Minnesota with a 4-3 shootout win at the Shark Tank.
The Wild finished the series 0-0-3 after Celebrini and Collin Graf scored in overtime in two meetings earlier this season in Minnesota. And on Saturday, hours after earning a Hockey Canada spot on what could be many Olympic teams in the future, Celebrini scored a goal, an assist and the shootout deciding goal to lift the Sharks to their 20th win of the season.
In his 40th game, Celebrini became the third-fastest teenager to 40 assists in a season in NHL history. The others? Sidney Crosby in 34 games in 2006-07 and Wayne Gretzky in 36 games in 1980-81. It was also his 18th multi-point game of the season, tied with Nikita Kucherov for third-most among all players. Nathan MacKinnon has 22 and Connor McDavid has 21.
And in six career games against the Wild, Celebrini has seven goals and 15 points.
“They’re a couple moves away, and (with) a little bit more experience in that lineup, I think (it’ll go) a long way,” Wild veteran Marcus Foligno said. “They got finally some goaltending and obviously a future Hall of Famer. So I think if you build around that, that kind of escalates the whole process of rebuilding pretty quick. So, give kudos to them. They’re a team that’s definitely on the rise.
“They beat us. They beat some other teams in this league and they’re not a team you take for granted. We knew coming in here it was going to be hard, especially in their home rink. It’s getting back to those days of (Patrick) Marleau, (Joe) Thornton and (Joe) Pavelski days, right? But … we’re done with them now. That’s a good thing.”
Macklin Celebrini on what will be his first of MANY Olympics (you may hear Ryan Reaves walk by and yell, “Best player on the world. No big deal.” pic.twitter.com/FPmAG9LgQ8
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) January 1, 2026
The Wild jumped out to a 1-0 first-period lead on a goal by Vladimir Tarasenko, but the Sharks rallied in the second on goals by Igor Chernyshov and Jeff Skinner before Celebrini provided a two-goal lead early in the third. But the Wild rallied on goals by Foligno and Mats Zuccarello 2:07 apart before Celebrini and William Eklund beat Jesper Wallstedt in the shootout for the rookie goalie’s first career shootout loss.