On the heels of a banner campaign that saw Macklin Celebrini amass 45 goals and 115 points, earn Hart Trophy votes, compete at his first Olympics, and captain Canada at the world championships, the 20-year-old phenom capped it all off by making history with his San Jose Sharks.
On Wednesday, the club announced Celebrini had inked a five-year, $94-million deal that keeps him in California through 2031-32. The extension gives the Sharks talisman the highest AAV in NHL history, $18.8 million, just above the $18 million AAV recently granted to Anaheim’s Leo Carlsson courtesy of a Philadelphia Flyers’ offer-sheet gamble.
Unlike the Carlsson deal, though, in the case of Celebrini the landmark number came as no surprise. The Sharks’ 2024 first-overall pick put the league on notice this past season, positioning himself as the most likely successor to Connor McDavid as the face of the NHL.
That in mind, how exactly does the young centreman’s deal compare to the first significant contract signed by the Oilers captain early in his career? Or by the previous face of the game, Sidney Crosby, before him? Here’s how the two previous NHL flagbearers navigated life after their entry-level contracts:
Connor McDavid: 8 years, $100 million ($12.5 million AAV)
After playing out his ELC, McDavid signed an eight-year, $100-million extension in Edmonton. His $12.5-million AAV amounted to 15.7 per cent of the cap ceiling in the first year of the deal (2018-19).
As the contract aged, and the cap slowly increased, that percentage became more favourable for the Oilers’ books. Through the first six years of the deal, McDavid’s AAV sat at around 15 per cent of the cap, before dropping to 14.2 per cent of the cap in Year 7 and 13.1 per cent in Year 8, the rising cap granting Edmonton more room with which to work. Overall, the cap rose from $79.5 million in the first year of McDavid’s deal to $95.5 million, this past season, at the end of it.
Sidney Crosby: 5 years, $43.5 million ($8.7 million AAV)
It was a similar situation for Crosby a decade earlier. After the Pittsburgh Penguins captain played out his ELC, he inked a five-year, $43.5-million pact that carried an $8.7-million AAV. This similarly amounted to just over 15 per cent of the cap in the first year of the deal (2008-09).
Again, the contract became more palatable for the club’s cap situation as the cap rose. By Year 3, Crosby’s cap hit amounted to 14.6 per cent of the cap, before falling below 13 per cent by the end of the deal.
Following that five-year pact, Crosby inked a 12-year extension at that same $8.7-million AAV to remain in Pittsburgh — by the time this new deal began, his cap hit sat at just 13.5 per cent of the cap. McDavid, similarly, followed up his eight-year deal with a two-year extension at the same AAV ($12.5 million), which will amount to 12 per cent of the cap when it kicks in next season.
How Celebrini’s new deal compares
While the young Shark’s extension obviously clocks in at a much higher cap hit than his predecessors, Celebrini’s deal also counts for a greater percentage of the cap. In Year 1, his $18.8-million AAV will sit at 16.6 per cent of the ceiling (projected to be $113.5 million in 2027-28), a shade higher than was the case for McDavid and Crosby.
The Sharks pivot’s deal is more akin to the one signed by Alex Ovechkin back in 2008, as is the context, with The Great Eight then slotting into the Washington Capitals’ books as a clear, central franchise player. Fresh off his ELC, that deal saw the all-time sniper sign for 13 years and $124 million — his $9.5-million AAV amounted to 16.8 per cent of the cap in Year 1 of the deal.
For San Jose, the key question moving forward will be how Celebrini’s deal impacts the rest of the club’s young core. Will Smith — the club’s fourth-overall pick in 2023, and Celebrini’s running mate in San Jose — will see his current deal expire after next season. Michael Misa — drafted second overall in 2025 — has two more years on his deal. Newly drafted phenom Ivar Stenberg will begin his ELC soon, and then will need a new deal in a few years himself.
The Sharks have space with which to operate, but they do also have some hefty deals to work around, with Darnell Nurse and Jacob Trouba added to the picture recently — the pair will make a combined $17.5 million per year for the next four seasons — and Mason Marchment set to earn just under $7 million for the next five years, too.
We need only look to Anaheim to see how quickly the situation can get complicated. The Ducks find themselves in something of a similar situation in the wake of Carlsson netting his $18-million AAV.
Carlsson’s contract in fact cuts into a bigger piece of the Ducks’ cap pie — 17.3 per cent in Year 1 of the deal — as it begins next season rather than the season after. Meanwhile, Anaheim still has to sign fellow young phenom Cutter Gauthier, who likely isn’t eying a deal significantly lower than Carlsson’s after coming up with a 40-goal effort last year while leading the team in scoring. Then there’s talented winger Beckett Sennecke, who has two more years on his deal before he’ll need his own extension, negotiated with both Carlsson’s and Gauthier’s numbers in mind.
In Edmonton, the task was balancing McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse and more recently Evan Bouchard. In Pittsburgh, it was the Big Three — Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang. Both the Pens and Oilers managed to build contenders around those cores, and both have endured stretches where the cap situation appeared more difficult to navigate, too.
For San Jose, they benefit from Celebrini’s landmark cap hit hitting the books a bit further down the line, when the cap rises just a little bit more. And they benefit too, from their young core’s extensions being more staggered in their timing. That said, a historic, benchmark-setting deal tends to complicate a club’s ability to build a viable contender, particularly when a number of young stars come up together. The hope in San Jose is that a continually rising cap eases that pressure as this Sharks core comes into their own.