What Macklin Celebrini is doing in his sophomore NHL season is downright ridiculous.

After a rookie campaign in which he put up 63 points in 70 games as an 18-year-old, the North Vancouver native’s 26 goals and 48 assists through 50 games this season have him on pace to finish 2025-26 with 43 goals and 122 total points. Absurd. Ridiculous.

Somehow, despite the points, Celebrini’s defensive game and hockey IQ are arguably what stand out most in his game. His reads are top-notch, he anticipates plays well, and he uses his skill to quickly turn the play the other way for his team in the rare case that the puck isn’t already in the offensive zone when he’s on the ice. His 74 points give him a 40-point cushion on the Sharks’ next leading scorers, Tyler Toffoli and Alex Wennberg. Ridiculous.

As the Sharks roll into Rogers Arena on Tuesday night, they do so in the thick of the Western Conference playoff hunt. Currently, the Sharks sit in a three-way tie for the second Wild Card spot in the West with the Seattle Kraken and Los Angeles Kings hot on their heels. Make no mistake about it: the Sharks are where they are largely because of what Celebrini has managed to do this season.

“He is very close to being a superstar in this league,” Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky told NBC Sports Bay Area in December. “I know where he is in the points and how many points he has within the league, top league leaders. And what I love about him is he plays with winning habits. He plays a 200-foot game. He’s physical, which is unheard of for a 19-year-old center to play on both sides of the puck with the intensity that he does and obviously scoring at a high rate, creating at a high rate.

“I think it’s going to just continue to rise, our culture. Whether that’s practice, whether that’s an optional skate, whether that’s a day in the gym, he sets the pace. He’s the first guy in the gym. He’s the first guy working on his body. He takes his nutrition as seriously as it comes. That’s when you really start growing your organization. You look at the great athletes — they carry themselves with leadership capabilities on and off the field or the court or the ice. He’s well on his way to that.”

As Celebrini returns to his hometown once again, one thing is clear: the 19-year-old — who will represent Team Canada at the Olympics next month — has fully arrived as one of the game’s elite players.

Once upon a time, the budding superstar, who was seen on national television chanting “Go Canucks Go” in the stands at Rogers Arena during the 2023-24 playoff run, just a couple of months before he’d be drafted by the Sharks, wanted his favourite team to rebuild.

“I took my opportunity during that game to get one last Canucks chant going… I heard about it at the [NHL Draft] combine, yeah,” Celebrini said with a smile as Sportsnet’s Kevin Bieksa asked him about the moment.

And before that viral moment, Celebrini gave his thoughts on the Canucks’ direction at the IIHF World U18 Championships in Switzerland. In a conversation with Elite Prospect’s JD Burke, Celebrini said:

“Oh yeah, I’m a big Canucks fan … Well, I think they should be in a rebuild phase. I love the team.”

The quote from the 16-year-old Celebrini — who had yet to play his draft season at Boston University — came on the heels of yet another late-season push from the Canucks, this time thanks to Rick Tocchet replacing Bruce Boudreau in January. The Canucks won plenty of games down the stretch and lowered their odds of drafting another North Vancouver superstar who wanted to play for his hometown team: Connor Bedard.

With the need for a rebuild having finally become downright undeniable, the Canucks now sit in the basement of the NHL standings, while Celebrini drags his team into the fight each and every night as they chase down a playoff spot. And of course, the Sharks still have plenty of pieces along the way, and are being cautious not to accelerate out of their rebuild too quickly, even with the addition of Kiefer Sherwood earlier this month.

Sherwood won’t face the Canucks tonight, but once he returns, he could easily find himself on San Jose’s top line with Celebrini.

Perhaps in another timeline, those two could have been linemates in Vancouver.