The game's result was another loss, but San Jose Sharks star Macklin Celebrini might've played the best game of his young career last night.

The game's result was another loss, but San Jose Sharks star Macklin Celebrini might've played the best game of his young career last night.

The 2024 No. 1 overall pick finished the game with an assist, 17 shots attempted with six on goal, and 20:35 of ice time. 

His 17 attempts at the net are the most shot attempts in a single game by an 18-year-old since the stat has been tracked. 

When diving deeper into the young phenom's advanced analytical numbers on Natural Stat Trick, one can find that Celebrini utterly dominated the game whenever he was on the ice. 

Across all situations, Celebrini had an xGF (expected goals for) of 1.83 to just 0.32 xGA (expected goals against). Regarding scoring chances, the 18-year-old was on the ice for 15 for and just two against. Four scoring chances were considered high danger, and only one of the two against was high danger.

The San Jose Sharks struggled to generate many high-danger chances, finishing with just nine to the Wild's 13. Head coach Ryan Warsofsky told reporters postgame that he didn't see his team get to the middle of the ice enough.

"We go to the middle of the ice. We need to do more of that," Warsofsky said about how the team scored their lone goal. "On our entries in the offensive zone, I thought we did a little bit better job of that. We gotta get middle lane drive. We gotta stop at the net and pay a price for some greasy ones, especially when we're not scoring right now."

Celebrini played on a line with William Eklund and Tyler Toffoli, and the trio completely dominated a depleted Minnesota Wild defense. 

Per Natural Stat Trick, the line had nine scoring chances for and two against during five-on-five play. Corsi is a stat used to help understand puck possession and how much offense is being created. The Celebrini line had a Corsi for % of 72.73. 

Here's the definition of the CF%: "The total of Corsi For shot attempts divided by the total of Corsi For shot attempts and Corsi Against shot attempts. A player percentage over 50% indicates his team is generating more shot attempts than the opposition when the player is on the ice."

Individually, Celebrini's CF% was 74.47.

Not only did his linemates benefit, but any defenseman on the ice with Celebrini had their numbers dramatically skewed toward offense.

Mario Ferraro had a CF% of 94.44 when he was on the ice with the potential Rookie of the Year. Ferraro didn't face a single scoring chance against the Sharks, who had seven chances themselves in those situations.

Now, part of these numbers is because Ferraro had a good game, but with some advanced numbers suggesting pure domination in all areas of the game, there is something to be said about who he was on the ice with, as Hockey truly is a team sport. 

He's still young and finding his way in the NHL, but Macklin Celebrini will have dominant nights like he did last night more often as he continues to develop and expose himself to all the league throws at him.

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