Macklin Celebrini

Last Season

Forty-five goals and 70 assists in all 82 games — 115 points, plus-eight, at 21:19 a night with eight power-play goals and 44 penalty minutes.

He turned 20 in June. A hundred and seventy-eight points in 152 career games.

The Finesse Game

The best young player in the sport and it is no longer an argument.

The shot chart is the surprising part. Four hundred and eight unblocked attempts, a median of 33 feet, and only 23 per cent of them from inside twenty — and forty-six goals came out of it.

Almost nobody scores forty-five goals from that far out. It works because the release is genuinely elite: he changes the angle late and the puck leaves before a goaltender has finished setting. It is also the profile that gets harder in a playoff series, where the outside is exactly what a checking team gives you.

Seventy assists says the rest of it.

The Physical Game

Six foot even, 190, and he competes far harder than a franchise centre needs to. Forty-four penalty minutes.

The skating is excellent in every direction and he protects the puck through contact at a weight that should not allow it.

The Intangibles

Forty-nine point five per cent of the expected goals, 48th percentile, and here is the thing worth sitting with: he was on the ice for 46 goals for and 67 against.

The chances underneath were 58.0 to 59.3 — essentially level. He scored a hundred and fifteen points while his club shot twelve goals under its expectation in front of him and its goaltenders let in eight more than they should have behind him.

Fifteen points in his last ten, eight of them goals. He is 20, and San Jose has him for a decade.