Sheng Peng
Ryan Reaves is sitting next to Macklin Celebrini in the San Jose Sharks’ locker room.
This arrangement is no accident.
“I think it was a little strategic,” 38-year-old Reaves, acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs this past summer for Henry Thrun, told San Jose Hockey Now.
“Everyone has a certain seat for a reason,” San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky said.
Celebrini is also flanked in the locker room by veteran sniper Tyler Toffoli, who sat by then-rookie Celebrini last season.
So why newcomer Reaves next to the 19-year-old franchise face?
There might not be a louder, more charismatic active player in the NHL than Reaves, who’s also suited up for 912 regular season and 113 playoff games with the St. Louis Blues, Pittsburgh Penguins, Vegas Golden Knights, New York Rangers, Minnesota Wild, and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Reaves opined, “Just trying to help him get out of his shell, help him feel comfortable. Toff on the other side, hopefully he feels that if he needs anything, or has any questions or anything like that, he can come to both of us.”
Celebrini is destined to be the captain of the San Jose Sharks one day, and the teenager did mention that he wanted to be a more vocal presence in the locker room this season.
“I want to feel comfortable being myself and speaking up when I want to,” Macklin Celebrini said on Tuesday. “We have a couple of Stanley Cup winners and guys who have been around for a long time, so you respect their voices and what they have to say. They’ve just been around and they’ve seen a lot more than I have, so I’m definitely going to learn a lot from them.”
“Young guys coming in, it’s hard to be a very loud voice in front of a lot of veterans,” Reaves said.
Reaves can also help the 19-year-old in other areas.
“Everybody’s different,” Reaves said. “Sometimes, you’re having issues off the ice. You’re having issues on the ice, you’re going through a bad stretch where you don’t know how to get out of it.”
He elaborated: “You’re having problems with your new girlfriend, I’ve gone through that with a guy. Just different problems that I’ve seen throughout 16 years. I’ve seen highs and lows of young guys, old guys, so I’ve experienced it. I know how to talk them out of it. And I’ve helped older guys too. I’ve helped some veteran guys who have been in their own head.”
That said, Reaves has a lot of respect for Celebrini’s immense skill and work ethic: “The good thing for him is it’s a very young team, and I think he’s already established himself as one of the elite players in this league, which helps him when he talks. Everybody’s going to listen just the way he works, the way he’s proven himself over his first season.”
Celebrini’s work ethic, as it was last year, is still a story in his second training camp.
“Even those skates before camp even started, you can see how hard he works. In Captain’s ice, where I think a lot of guys tend to float and just kind of try and get their legs out a little bit, he’s flying around the ice, and he’s stopping on pucks, he’s doing that for two, three-straight minutes and then getting off,” Reaves said. “At a young age, he’s already grown into a leader for just the couple months that I’ve known him.”
Celebrini getting more comfortable as a leader could be as simple as knowing that he has the full backing of all the veterans in the room.
“He’s a great kid. He’s humble. He plays the right way,” Reaves said. “The veterans here, he has our ear. I’m going to pay attention when he talks.”
And Celebrini’s ears certainly will catch everything that the bombastic Reaves is saying.
“Reavo brings a lot of energy to that locker room,” Warsofsky said, of the bump in the volume in the locker room. “So we got Mario [Ferraro] on one wall and we got Reavo on the other. We’ll try to balance it out.”
“He’s just always happy, always kind of bringing the good mood. He just brings an energy to our group,” Celebrini said of Reaves.
The kid added, about sitting between 2014 Stanley Cup winner Toffoli and one of the most feared enforcers in recent NHL history, “Both of them, they’re just great people, great leaders. They have strong voices in our room. When they talk, people listen to them. I know I look up to both of them in different ways.”