There's a name you're going to hear a lot of over this hockey season...and most likely, many more.
Macklin Celebrini.
Celebrini (Vancouver, B.C.) entered the New England college hockey scene for Boston University — and as one of the region's best prospects ever. He's only a freshman, and he's thriving with eight goals and three assists in his first six games.
As of now, he could end up being the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.
To learn more about Celebrini, we talked with FloHockey’s Chris Peters, who watched countless hours of Celebrini taking the USHL by storm last season with the Chicago Steel.
Skating
Peters: “His skating is certainly a strength. It might not necessarily be blazing speed, but there's power. There's grace in his stride. He can beat defenders wide, he can back defenders down with his speed. I think that his ability to kind of have his hands and feet moving with just the speed that he does. His skating is a big part of what makes him deceptive and the ability to get around guys and he's just got tremendous balance. He's really strong on his edges. He's hard to knock off the puck, too. He casts a bit of a wide base. He protects very well. A lot of teams try to play him physical but he’s real strong on his feet. He’s a complete skater.”
Shot
Peters: “He's a goal scorer. He has a goal-scorer’s shots, places pucks well. He’s got a heavy shot of him. We've been watching these guys these last couple of years like the [Connor] Bedards and the [Cole] Caufields and the release that they have and I wouldn't say that his is necessarily quite at that level. But you watch how many goals he scored from distance this year where goalies were guessing where it was going. That's certainly another strength of his. He has goal-scoring sense, which is the shot and so he's able to get it off in a variety of ways. He's got plenty of different release points, and then he also has just really good accuracy. And the other thing I like about him too is that he's not overly reliant on the shot. He's not always trying to shoot from distance, he's not always trying to shoot from tight angles, but he shoots to score.”
Macklin Celebrini is ridiculous 🔥
His 1st collegiate goal has the Terriers up 2-1 heading into the 3rd@TerrierHockey l @FloHockey pic.twitter.com/y8rHVZvTTo
— EVERYTHING COLLEGE HOCKEY (@TeamECH) October 8, 2023
Hockey sense
Peters: “His hockey sense is elite. It's probably what helps separate him. He's got vision. He has great selection of the different plays that he can use to his disposal. He knows how to exploit defensemen. When he's in trouble, he's really never in trouble because he knows what outlets he has to make. He knows where he has to get [the puck]. He'll either do it himself or he'll find the correct pass. Just really good chemistry and I think that he could play with anybody. He had a lot of really great plays last year with Jayden Perron. But in games that I saw, whether or not he was playing with Perron, he made everybody better. And I think that's the sign of a player with great hockey sense.”
Defense
Peters: “He's not a huge guy (6 feet, 190 pounds) but he's strong so he gets involved in the defensive zone. He's a body-on-body player. He's able to get players off pucks because he can either outmuscle them or outsmart them. He strips a lot of pucks like he gets a lot of guys that aren't feeling that pressure and he gets it and he'll go the other way. Really smart transitional player. He doesn't cheat for offense ever. I haven't seen a game where he was cheating and so I think that that's part of the defensive sense that he understands the responsibility as a center. He's good on draws. He was dealing with a shoulder injury last year, which we didn't really know the extent of for a while. He was still extremely competitive on faceoffs trying to win pucks. And I think that one of the other things that comes with the defensive sense is just how confident he is in taking pucks away and he doesn't quit on any play.”
Playmaking
Peters: “I think he's just as good a passer as he is a shooter and in terms of creating opportunities for his teammates, teams have to respect what he's doing. He's not going to take the first play that's available to him. He's going to find the right play. And I think that that's what makes him fit with anybody. He had a really good sense of where players were going to be or at least where they should have been. That's another thing like he kind of has a has that vision that allows him to see the ice in a way that is upper level.”
NHL comparable
Peters: “I see a lot Jonathan Toews in him. I think one thing that we forget about as Toews career progressed, is how skilled he was. He's had multiple, incredible highlight reel goals early in his career when he had a little bit more confidence to do that kind of thing. I think that that's kind of in the same regard as Mac because he's a complete center. He is intense on the ice. You talk to him off the ice, soft-spoken kid. He's confident but he's not cocky so there's a lot there. But I do think that looking at Toews in his North Dakota days and very early in his career, you see a lot of those same elements that Mac has which is to say that he's responsible in all areas, and then he has this incredible skill that can beat defenders and can make plays. I think that he's got a real potential to be a top-end guy.”
