Celebrini's 3-point game leads Sharks to impressive win over Hurricanes

Curtis Pashelka, The Mercury News on Dec 7, 2025

Published in Hockey

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Second-year San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini made sure the 100th game of his already stellar NHL career would be worth remembering.

Celebrini had a goal and two assists, and goalie Alex Nedeljkovic finished with 28 saves to lead the Sharks to an impressive 4-1 win over the host Carolina Hurricanes at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, N.C., Sunday to snap a five-game road losing streak.

Collin Graf scored his fifth of the season 33 seconds into the first period, and John Klingberg and center Alexander Wennberg each scored in the second period as the Sharks earned their first win away from home since beating the Minnesota Wild 2-1 in overtime on Nov. 11.

Celebrini, 19, assisted on Graf and Klingberg’s goals and scored an empty-netter with 1:20 to go in regulation time as the Sharks rebounded from losses to the Washington Capitals and Dallas Stars earlier this week.

Over his first 100 games for the Sharks, Celebrini is the clear leader among all teenagers in team history in goals (40) and assists (66). Only five players in NHL history, regardless of age, have scored more points in their first 100 NHL games: Sidney Crosby (132), Alex Ovechkin (128), Evgeni Malkin (114), Kirill Kaprizov (112) and Connor McDavid (108).

Celebrini, who has 12 multi-point games this season, was so determined to get the Sharks back on track Sunday that he wasn’t even aware that their game against the Hurricanes was the 100th of his career.

“That was my 100th?” Celebrini said on NBC Sports California after the game. “I mean, that went by really fast. I know (Will Smith) had his (100th NHL game on Nov. 29). It’s something special.”

Celebrini assisted on Graf’s goal 33 seconds into the first period, and also worked a give-and-go with Klingberg, whose even-strength goal at the 7:54 mark of the second period past Hurricanes goalie Pyotr Kochetkov gave the Sharks a 2-1 lead.

“I saw that (Celebrini) was coming around the net, and I didn’t have a chance to shoot it right away, and didn’t see that I was going to score from (near the boards),” Klingberg said. “You want to give the best player the puck and then open up to get an even better scoring chance. When I got the puck, I saw that I had a lot of net to shoot on over (Kochetkov’s) shoulder.”

Klingberg’s goal, plus his assist on Wennberg’s power play goal at the 15:14 mark of the second, gave him his second two-point game of the season after he had a goal and an assist in the Sharks’ 6-1 road win over the Seattle Kraken on Nov. 5.

Klingberg, who signed a one-year, $3 million contract with the Sharks in July as a free agent, has faced his share of criticism for how he’s played at times with San Jose, with too much risk and not enough reward — plus perhaps some slow decision-making — this season.

Klingberg, though, looked sharp on the power play, blocked three shots, and finished with 18:43 in ice time.

“Probably his best game of the year,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said of Klingberg. “Just kept it simple. Moved pucks, got into people. I thought he defended with some urgency. Obviously, he scores a nice goal, but his puck play was something that we’ve talked about. It was a lot simpler, which is what we need, and we need that going forward.”

Nedeljkovic had his best game in recent memory, too, as his 15 saves in the third period helped him get his first win since Nov. 7, when he stopped 32 of 33 shots in the Sharks’ 2-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets. In his next five games before Sunday, Nedeljkovic was 0-3-0 with a .870 save percentage as Yaroslav Askarov established himself as the Sharks’ No. 1 goalie.

The Sharks (14-13-3) were coming off a 4-1 loss to the Stars on Friday, in which they allowed three goals in the third period. In their last five away games before Sunday, the Sharks were 0-5-0 while being outscored 20-5.

The Sharks are now 10-0-1 this season when leading after two periods, a stark contrast to last season, when they were 12-8-5 in such situations.

“Happy that I put us in a position to win, honestly,” Nedeljkovic said. “If the guys can pull through and we can get two points, it’s huge. They played awesome tonight. We limited them in the first two periods there. … I thought we did a good job of just hunkering down, staying with it in our own end in the third and just keeping it simple.”

The Sharks’ road trip continues next week with games in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Toronto on Thursday and Pittsburgh on Saturday.

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