Macklin Celebrini rejoins San Jose Sharks lineup, teammates stress Connor McDavid reality check
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Daniel Lucente
Feb 24, 2026 (9:10)
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Photo credit: James Lang-Imagn Images
Macklin Celebrini gets a harsh Team Canada wake-up call, and the San Jose Sharks room is not pretending it is pretty.
The post making the rounds comes from a LeRetour segment with Vincent Desharnais.
Desharnais jokes that when Celebrini comes back, he will be "disappointed," because those slick passes will not land on Cale Makar's tape anymore.
It is cruel, but it is also honest, after Celebrini returned with a silver medal.
The same graphic adds another punchline, "I'm not McDavid," pinned to Will Smith.
"Mack's gonna come back to us, he's gonna be fcking disappointed. He's gonna pass to Desharnais and he's not Makar. He's gonna be disappointed as fck. Smith, Smitty, said 'Yup, he's gonna see that I'm not McDavid.'"
- Will Smith
- Will Smith
That is the core of the adjustment. International hockey gives you cheat-code options on every touch.
San Jose is better this year, but it is still a grind. The Sharks sit at 27-24-4 right now.
Celebrini is still driving it anyway.
He is 19, he was the 2024 first-round pick, first overall, by the Sharks, and he is already posting 28-53-81 in 55 games.
Macklin Celebrini and the San Jose Sharks need patience
You can feel Sharks fans bracing for the next cold stretch, because we have seen this movie before.
Desharnais is not mocking the kid. He is protecting him from the whiplash of going from stacked lines to nightly survival shifts.
That matters when Celebrini is carrying top-six minutes and every top pairing is aiming at him.
Smith, 20, was the 2023 first-round pick, fourth overall, by San Jose, and he is learning the same lesson in real time.
The fix is not magic, it is reps.
On the man advantage, Celebrini can slow the game down and force rotations. At five on five, he has to win a second battle before the pretty play even exists.
This is where the rebuild turns, or stalls.
If the Sharks keep hovering near the race after the Olympic break, those blunt jokes will sound a lot more like belief.
And if they slip, Celebrini will still be the reason you keep watching, because the talent is already screaming through the noise.
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