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San Jose Sharks general manager Mike Grier appears keen to keep who he will select with the No. 1 pick in Friday's NHL draft a mystery, despite hinting at his intentions last month.
Grier was excited about the draft lottery selection of Macklin Celebrini last month as a big opportunity for his rebuilding team, but has since chosen to play it down when it comes to one of college hockey's top players, who has been a high draft pick for more than a year and has Bay Area ties.
“We'll know when Friday night comes,” Greer said this week.
Still, the third-year GM got excited when asked what he's learned about the Boston College center over the past six weeks.
“I had dinner with him and he was sitting at a table with eight grown men, having a conversation and it was easy and comfortable,” Grier said of dining with Celebrini at the combine three weeks ago.
“If you sit with him for two minutes, you really feel his drive and his competitive spirit. That oozes off of him,” he added. “He's a driven kid. He's an alpha.”
In other words, the just-turned-18-year-old is a foundational player for coach Greer as he deepens his pool of promising prospects in a rebuilding franchise that is currently in the midst of its longest playoff drought, five years.
Celebrini, who stands 6 feet tall and weighs about 200 pounds, was the youngest player in college hockey to finish second in the nation with 32 goals and third with 64 points in 38 games. A native of northern British Columbia, Celebrini played one year with the Jr. Sharks program after his father, Rick, took a job as vice president of player health and performance for the NBA's Golden State Warriors.
With Celebrini likely to be the first pick, intrigue will be seeing who will take the next five picks, whether a big trade or two will be made over the two-day draft, such as Toronto's Mitch Marner and Columbus' Patrick Laine being sold, and whether the 1-year-old Sphere in Las Vegas will host its first sporting event, putting on an indoor and outdoor extravaganza.
Celebrini is looking forward to enjoying the Sphere experience in many different ways.
“I've never been,” he said Wednesday, “and from what I've heard, this is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“This is a big moment. It's something I've always dreamed about since I was a kid. I'm excited, nervous and grateful to have this opportunity,” Celebrini said of the long pre-draft process nearing its end.
The draft will also serve as the Utah Hockey Club's debut party following the franchise's offseason relocation from Arizona to Salt Lake City.
“You'll have to wait and see,” GM Bill Armstrong said of what color jerseys the team's new prospects will wear. Utah currently has 13 players selected in the seventh round of the draft, starting with the sixth pick.
The Chicago Blackhawks will be able to influence how the draft plays out by acquiring the No. 2 pick a year after selecting center Connor Bedard with the No. 1 pick last year.
The Blackhawks wouldn't reveal who they had selected No. 2, but general manager Kyle Davidson said his staff enjoyed healthy discussions leading up to the decision.
“We have great options, so when you have great options, you have to have a good conversation,” Davidson said Thursday. “If it were easy, we probably would have known months ago or at the time of the draw.”
The general consensus is that Chicago's selection is split between two defensemen, Michigan State's Artyom Levshunov and Russia's Anton Silaev, and Russian forward Ivan Demidov.
Levshunov left his native Belarus two years ago to play in North America, but restrictions on NHL teams entering Belarus to scout and meet players have been in place since the Ukraine war, raising questions for Russian prospects.
Davidson has not yet met Shiraev, who is listed as 6-foot-7 and weighs 211 pounds, but he did have a chance to meet Demidov at the Russian player combine hosted by player agents in Florida last week.
“Really a great young man,” Davidson said of Demidov. “Really great input for us and a great springboard for the draft process to get everything going.”
Anaheim is set to pick third, followed by Columbus and Montreal.
Other promising players in the top five include Medicine Hat Tigers center Kayden Lindstrom and University of Denver defenseman Zeev Bouium.
Central scouting director Dan Maher said the top tier of this year's draft is particularly well-stocked with defensemen with a variety of strengths.
“No two are the same. It's like a smorgasbord,” Marr said.
One position that is lacking in talent is goaltender, with some predicting the first goaltender to be selected in the third round. The highest-rated goaltender is thought to be Mikhail Yegorov, a Moscow native who played for USHL Omaha last season and has committed to attend BU.
The uncertainty of the overcall depending on how teams rank Demidov and Shiraev will leave Armstrong with a variety of different plans at the No. 6.
“It's all speculation at this point,” he said.
What is clear is how Salt Lake City has embraced an NHL franchise.
“People wave at me on the street. It's kind of weird because everybody knows who I am in Salt Lake City, whereas nobody recognized me in Arizona,” Armstrong said. “It's a big deal in Utah and it's a big deal in Salt Lake City, and you can really feel it.”
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Associated Press freelance writer W.G. Ramirez contributed to this report.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
