Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice praised San Jose Sharks rookie phenom Macklin Celebrini by comparing him to Aleksander Barkov.
Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice praised San Jose Sharks rookie phenom Macklin Celebrini by comparing him to Aleksander Barkov.
Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice praised San Jose Sharks rookie phenom Macklin Celebrini by comparing him to Aleksander Barkov.
Barkov, the captain of the defending Stanley Cup Champions, is widely regarded as the best two-way center in the world. As captain of the Panthers, he leads by example and keeps his team in line.
"We don't have anybody in our room cheating the game because Barkov doesn't," Maurice told THN. "That would be difficult to try to pull off."
Maurice was enamored with Celebrini's complete game and leadership qualities as a rookie.
"Most highly skilled young players that come into the league at 18 or 19, and these guys have world-class skill. They have never really had to develop the defensive part of the game or shown an aptitude for it," Maurice said. "[Celebrini] looks like he's got it nailed down right at his age right now. I thought he played a really smart, almost veteran game."
When the San Jose Sharks visited the Florida Panthers on Dec. 7, Maurice said he felt Celebrini had a terrific balance of when to make plays and when to dump the puck in. San Jose would lose 3-1, and Mackenzie Blackwood would stop 51 shots in his final game as a member of San Jose.
Then, Maurice poured out the comparisons of leadership qualities between Barkov and Celebrini.
"They've got a really good player there. I don't know the man, [I've] never met him, but he plays like a leader. He doesn't cheat the game to score points. And that's the kind of guy that ends up being Barkov," Maurice said. "They end up being the guys that are captain of your team that do all the right things. Very, very mature game for a young man with some incredible skill."
Barkov has been the Panthers captain since 2018 and could very well win the 2025 Mark Messier Leadership Award. Barkov will play for Finland in the upcoming Four Nations Face-Off and is the front-runner to be named captain for his home nation.
Maurice said asking Celebrini to be well renowned in a locker room at 18 can be a lot, but the 2024 No. 1 pick has all the tools to do it.
"It's a lot to ask for a young man to do [what Barkov does], but he will modify the players around them by the way he plays," Maurice said. "As Mr. Celebrini ages, the players around him will form more to that mentality. That's where the great leadership is. Your style of play becomes the team's identity. Nobody could could play like Wayne Gretzky, clearly. But you could play as hard as Mark Messier did, or attempt to play that hard, and that kind of leadership, those elite guys changed the way the people around them approached the game."
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