NHL
Preview/Lines #67: Can Celebrini-Bedard Be Next Crosby-Ovechkin?
For the first time, Macklin Celebrini will play against Connor Bedard.
It’s the 2024 No. 1 pick versus the 2023, two North Vancouver boys who skated with each other when they were kids at North Shore Winter Club…and the NHL’s next great star rivalry?
“I don’t know if it’ll be the Crosby-Ovechkin,” San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky said, “but it’ll be probably in that ballpark.”
Sidney Crosby-Alex Ovechkin has been must-see TV for two decades, since Crosby was the 2005 first-overall pick and Ovechkin was the 2004 first-overall.
But like Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins and Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals, both Celebrini’s San Jose Sharks and Bedard’s Chicago Blackhawks have a ways to go before they see each other in a meaningful game.
For the third-consecutive season, San Jose and Chicago are vying for the No. 1 pick.
The 2024 Calder Trophy winner, in his second season in the cellar, had this advice for the 2025 Calder front-runner.
“As competitors, you get so focused on the results, how you’re playing, how your team’s doing. I know he has super-high expectations for himself, personally and for his teams, it can obviously get frustrating,” Bedard said, of all the losing that he and Celebrini have endured. “For me, I’m just trying to focus on process. You want to win, but just trying to get better each and every game.”
It took Crosby’s second season and Ovechkin’s third— both made their NHL debuts in 2005-06 — before their teams reached the playoffs. Pittsburgh-Washington’s first playoff clash wasn’t until 2009.
“Them and us, we have a lot of ways to go before it’s a high, high-level rivalry where we’re both in a playoff spot and maybe we face each other in the playoffs,” Celebrini said. “Both of our franchises need a little bit of time to get there.”
Hopefully, both the Sharks and Blackhawks get there. The pieces are there, between franchise centers Celebrini and Bedard, top-flight young goalies Yaroslav Askarov and Spencer Knight, and future star running mates like Will Smith and Artyom Levshunov.
But for now, Celebrini and Bedard just have praise for each other.
“He’s always been a superstar, whenever we were younger. He’s always been the kid you see now,” Celebrini said of Bedard, who he skated with when he was five or six, before they went on different teams.
Celebrini said that Bedard gave him his phone number this past summer, if he needed advice, though he hasn’t sought him out yet.
“His playmaking is unbelievable. I see that a lot in the summers when I skate with him,” Celebrini said of Bedard. “The way he sees the ice I think doesn’t get appreciated as much. Also, his ability to strip pucks from guys. He has such a long stick, and he knows how to use it.”
“He’s a dynamic player. Coming in as an 18-year-old, it’s tough, it’s a good league,” Bedard said of Celebrini. “He’s always hounding pucks and he’s always moving and he’s just hard to play against. I think that’s impressive from an offensive player who’s so gifted…That’s something that people might not notice as much is how hard he is on pucks. He’s always getting in the way and creating stuff off the puck.”
“It’s going to be cool,” Celebrini said of tonight’s match-up.
San Jose Sharks (17-40-9)
It’s the Race for Schaef, as the two worst teams take each other on in a battle for Draft Lottery position.
Alexandar Georgiev will start, his sixth-straight start.
“We’ll see. We’re taking it one day at a time,” Warsofsky said, about getting prospect Georgi Romanov a start soon.
He did compliment Romanov’s growth since the Sharks signed him in the summer of 2023: “Like his talent, his size, improved a lot, in the last year and a half.
Noah Gregor will make his Sharks “debut”, coming in for Carl Grundstrom.
The Sharks could line up like this:
Eklund-Celebrini-Toffoli
Graf-Wennberg-Smith
Kovalenko-Dellandrea-Kostin
Gregor-Giles-Goodrow
Ferraro-Mukhamadullin
Vlasic-Liljegren
Schuldt-Desharnais
Georgiev
Chicago Blackhawks (20-36-9)
Get your Chicago Blackhawks lines and updates at Chicago Hockey Now!
Where To Watch
Puck drop between the San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks is 7:30 PM PT at SAP Center. Watch it live on NBC Sports California. Listen to it on the Sharks Audio Network.
I just do not at all get swapping out Grundstrom for Gregor. Goodrow-Giles-Grundstrom have been very good the last two games and arguably our best line against Nashville. They got a goal off a nice forecheck from Goodrow, nice pass from Grundstrom, and nice finish from Giles. Why mess with that especially for a guy like Gregor who pretty much is what he is at this point. Definitely bums me for Grundstrom whose underlying numbers are miles above the rest of the bottom 6 players but has been plagued with poor finishing luck this season. Though I imagine constantly being… Read more »
Look at my game notes last game, the Grundstrom play that leads to a Goodrow penalty. Agree Grundstrom did a lot of good things, but that was a losing hockey play philosophically, even without the penalty and subsequent goal against. Coaches hate plays like that, that’s one of the reasons why it stuck out to me, an unforced error, trying to play fancy, when your job is to be simple and north-south.
Benching a player whose underlying numbers dwarf your fellow bottom 6 players when he’s arguably had two of his best games this season because of a singular play seems pretty counter intuitive. Kostin in the last two games has had a handful of really dumb plays. One including a blind drop pass to Celebrini in our defensive zone while 5on5 but he’s not scratched. Goodrow has taken dozens of stupid and lazy penalties this season and hasn’t been healthy scratched a single time. I mean even the situation you’re talking about why Grundstrom deserved a scratch was still just a… Read more »
Yeah, I have to agree on this one. Benching guys for singular mistakes at this point in the season makes little to no sense. Reward guys for what they’re doing right. Grundstrom and Dellandrea are probably both better nightly options than Goodrow, they’re just not getting the opportunity to establish any sort of momentum.
It may be just as simple that they want to give Gregor a game.
Have to agree with everyone else. But I also hate Gregor.
I just thought the whole line did so many good things that coaching that one play very strongly but keeping the line together would have been worth it.
Goodrow gives up big plays every game due to lack of ability to stop them, but they never punish that
Are you arguing about the 4th line on the worst team in the league?
Sorry Maptov. Didn’t realize talking about the Sharks wasn’t allowed on sanjosehockeynow.com
I think that on this of all nights, following perhaps the best 4th line performance this terrible team has had in 5 years, there would have been a reason for continuity.
I haven’t questioned a lot of what Warsofsky and the org have done this year. But I don’t love this at all.
I mean, we’re pretty short on subjects. 🤣
Still having to use Lyft. The Transit Authority filed a lawsuit to make them go back to work. Even though I am pro-worker and hope they get a good deal, I kind of want the court to make them go back on the job. This is brutal. Who knows what horrors await tonight?
Thank you for the article Sheng! Very interesting to finally see these two current/future stars of the NHL playing in the same game and presumably going head-to-head on some shifts. It is fun knowing that there are still interesting stories and topics to check out, even with this being a losing season. Such as: 1) Will we continue to see the same level of play by Giles. I realize right now he mainly “winging it” as he is just getting acclimated to the team. 2) I want to see more from Kovalenko as he has a couple games under his… Read more »
It can’t be good for Romanov to sit for 2 weeks. if nothing else, put him in once Georgiev has given up 4 or the team’s down 2 goals in the 3rd period.
As for Ovie vs Sid, that happens because they meet in the playoffs. Neither the Sharks or Blackhawks have that in their near future. A few years down the road, however …
I don’t think he’s in the team’s future plans, and he’s making NHL money. I’d sit in the goalie seat and take a puck to the face for that money
Romanov is not in the plans?
But Fourgiev is?
The Ovie vs Sid thing started before they met in the playoffs. It was due to being generational talents drafted 1OA in back to back years. Same as Bedard and Celly.
Imagine how bad it is for every goalie that there is an offseason. He’s fine not playing for a couple weeks.
Just the Sharks, personally.
Personally I say fuck the Blackhawks and they should have had to forfeit the 1st round pick that landed them Bedard for their handling of sexual abuse of their players.
Amen
Exactly!
Does anybody know about Bystedt? Is he injured?
Celebrini was in the starting lineup last game, which I think was the only time this year (at home, at least) except for when the Penguins were here. Which I am pretty sure was done for a photo opp of him and Crosby facing off to open the game.
I wonder if it’ll be Bedard-Celebrini tonight.
For the love of god can we please have a night off from Georsieve?
Apparently god is dead.😜🤣