The Most Important Fantasy Hockey Question of Our Generation : Is Celebrini the first overall pick?
At some point in the next few years, the fantasy hockey community is going to have to make a decision about Macklin Celebrini. Not whether to draft him. Everyone is drafting him. The question is where? And in dynasty leagues specifically, the question is should Macklin Celebrini be the first overall pick in NHL dynasty drafts?
The answer is yes. And the numbers from 2025-26 make the case so emphatically that disagreeing requires ignoring the most statistically dominant age-19 season any player has produced in the modern era of the sport.
Celebrini finished last season with 45 goals, 70 assists, and 115 points in all 82 games, breaking Joe Thornton’s long-standing San Jose franchise record of 114 points, set in 2006-07 ( he was 27 years old ). He finished fourth in the entire NHL in scoring. He led the Sharks in goals, assists, points, plus-minus, power play points, game-winning goals, and shots. He was a Hart Trophy candidate and a Ted Lindsay Award finalist, and in the most jaw-dropping organizational stat of the entire season, he finished 56 points ahead of the team’s second-highest scorer, the widest gap between an NHL team’s leading scorer and their next-closest teammate since the 1990-91 season. He carried a rebuilding franchise to the edge of a playoff spot largely on the strength of his own brilliance. He was 19 years old.
The contract that followed tells you everything about where the hockey world places him. Celebrini signed a five-year, $94 million extension with San Jose — $18.8 million per year, the highest AAV in NHL history — and he took a discount to do it. He easily could have commanded $22.7 million annually at the maximum. He chose to give San Jose the flexibility to build around him, which is exactly the kind of organizational commitment that makes dynasty managers sleep soundly.
He will be 26 years old when that contract expires and he hits unrestricted free agency in 2032.
Now to 2026-27. A projection of 45 goals and 60 assists for 105 points across 84 games is genuinely conservative for a player who just produced 115 in 82. The slight regression in assists is reasonable — a 70-assist season from a 19-year-old is historically unusual, and some pullback is expected. But the 45 goals are entirely sustainable, backed by 287 shots on goal last season — tied for fourth in the entire league — and an underlying shooting efficiency that reflects genuine skill rather than statistical noise.
The environment around him is also meaningfully better. Ivar Stenberg, the second overall pick in the 2026 draft, has signed his entry-level contract and will be in San Jose’s lineup. Will Smith, whose 59 points in 69 games last season already showed what he is capable of alongside Celebrini, is still there, and Michael Misa who was selected second overall in 2025, will be looking to play his first full season in the NHL. This is no longer a rebuilding team carrying one elite player. This is a team with a core capable of making the Sharks a genuine Western Conference threat within two seasons.
Now the dynasty question. Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon are still the two best players in hockey. For redraft leagues, they belong ahead of Celebrini in 2026-27 based on established track records of sustained peak production. Both are capable of 140-plus point seasons when healthy. That edge is real and should be respected.
But in dynasty leagues, where age and longevity are the currency that separates good rosters from generational ones, the calculation changes completely. McDavid turns 30 this season. MacKinnon turns 31. Both are at or past the peak of their production windows. Celebrini is 20 years old and just posted 115 points. The long play, the play that your league talks about for a decade, is selecting Celebrini first overall in your dynasty draft right now, before the consensus catches up to where the numbers already are.
The dynasty window for Celebrini extends well into the 2030s. McDavid and MacKinnon are elite for perhaps three to five more seasons at their current level. The mathematics of dynasty hockey are unambiguous on this point.
Take Celebrini first. Build your dynasty around him.
Statistics and contract details sourced from NHL.com, The Hockey News, Pro Hockey Rumors, PuckPedia, and the San Jose Sharks official website, July 2026.
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