San Jose Sharks forward Macklin Celebrini has been listed as questionable for Saturday’s matchup against the Anaheim Ducks with a lower body injury.
Celebrini performed well in his NHL debut against the Blues, recording a goal and an assist in his team’s 5-4 OT loss. Head coach Ryan Warsofsky said Friday that Celebrini is dealing with a lower-body injury and is still being evaluated, but stopped short of confirming whether it was a new injury or a re-aggravation of an existing one.
The rookie wasn’t on the ice for Friday’s practice session and had previously missed some time in the preseason after going hard into the boards in a game against Utah.
The 18-year-old centre was selected 1st overall in this year’s NHL entry draft after amassing 32 goals and 64 points with Boston University in the NCAA last season. As a result, Celebrini won the Hobey Baker Award as the top collegiate player in the country.
Celebrini also represented Canada at the 2024 World Juniors, posting four goals and eight points in five games. However, a series of nagging injuries have hampered him throughout training camp, though it was hard to tell based on his production across 17:35 minutes of ice time in his pro-debut.
At 18 years and 119 days, Celebrini became the youngest Shark to score in his NHL debut. He also became the third-youngest player to record multiple points in their pro debut behind Nathan MacKinnon (18 years and 31 days) and Bobby Carpenter (18 years and 86 days).
San Jose will host the Ducks on Saturday night at 10pm ET.
Photo: Doug Kerr. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.