
Status Under contract (extension window opens 2027)
Macklin Celebrini's $18.8 million average annual value is NOT the highest in the NHL on July 29, 2027. Scored off any active standard player contract carrying a higher AAV on that date, signed by any player on any club, and counting a signed extension that has not yet taken effect. A hit means at least one such contract exists; a miss means $18.8 million still stands alone at the top.
San Jose signs Will Smith to a new contract of five years or fewer on or before July 1, 2027.
Macklin Celebrini finishes the 2026-27 regular season with at least 70 even-strength points for San Jose, after 82 in 2025-26.
San Jose's power play finishes the 2026-27 regular season converting 23.00 percent or better, after 21.18 percent in 2025-26.
Kiefer Sherwood averages under 1:45 a night on the power play across San Jose's first 20 games of 2026-27.
Alexander Wennberg finishes the 2026-27 regular season with more power-play points than Michael Misa.
Collin Graf spent 39 minutes and 38 seconds on the power play across 81 games last season, tenth among San Jose forwards, and 200 minutes killing penalties, which was first. He scored 21 goals anyway and finished with 42 even-strength points, tied with Will Smith for second on the team behind Macklin Celebrini. San Jose then signed him for three years and $12,750,000. The open house row on him says he reaches 50 points, and the entire case for that is usage the club has never given him.

Alexander Wennberg scored 55 points in 80 games last season and averaged 20:27 a night. Three minutes twenty of that was power play, second on the whole roster behind Macklin Celebrini, and two minutes eight was penalty kill. The demotion every projection has him taking is an even-strength demotion, and both published power-play projections keep him on the first unit. The number that threatens the 55 is a 19.4 percent shooting rate against a career mark of 11.4 across 869 games.

Macklin Celebrini's first media availability since his five-year, $94 million extension. He explained the number, the timing and the term, and all three explanations were about San Jose's flexibility rather than his own market. The context underneath them is a June meeting his agent Pat Brisson requested with owner Hasso Plattner and general manager Mike Grier, reported in July, about the direction of the franchise.

Quentin Musty shot 168 times in 61 American Hockey League games last season and scored 21 goals, a 12.5 percent conversion rate on the highest volume in the organization. He is the highest-ceiling forward outside San Jose's opening 23 and the one most likely to be told to wait. The camp spot everybody imagines him winning is the wrong door, because the door that opens in September leads to a checking job and the recall in December leads to the one he can actually do.

Macklin Celebrini scored 82 of his 115 points at even strength last season. Connor McDavid scored 82 of his 138 there. Same number, same 82 games. The difference between 115 points and 138 is a power play that converted 30.63 percent in Edmonton and 21.18 percent in San Jose, and a ranking built on point totals is measuring two power plays at least as much as it is measuring two players.

Adam Gaudette scored 17 goals in 66 games last season on 11:28 a night, a rate of 1.35 goals per sixty minutes that only Macklin Celebrini beat among the forwards San Jose returns. He is also the thirteenth forward in most published projections of the 2026-27 lineup, he must clear waivers to be sent anywhere, and he is in the final year of a two-year deal at $2,000,000. The season's question is not whether he can finish. It is whether a deeper team gives him anything to finish.

San Jose's 2026-27 preseason is four games, down from six in each of the last three years, because the new collective bargaining agreement caps it there. The same agreement limits any player with 100 or more NHL games to two exhibition appearances. Nineteen of the 41 players on the club's listed roster clear that bar, including Macklin Celebrini at 152 games and Will Smith at 143. From the first rookie game on September 12 to the opener on October 1 is nineteen days and six games.

Clarke, Demidov, Carlsson, Mintyukov, Nemec, Bedard and Celebrini all signed between June 26 and July 29. Six of the seven landed on five years, three defensemen negotiated by three separate front offices landed within $200,000 of each other, and the term on the summer's biggest restricted free agent contract was written by a team that never employed him. What that leaves San Jose is a date in 2032 it did not pick.

Celebrini's extension is five years and $94 million, an $18.8 million cap hit that is the highest in league history. A max deal would have paid $104 million. Every dollar of the difference is deferred to the last two seasons, the first three pay the maximum an NHL contract is allowed to pay, and $89.1 million of the total is signing bonus.

How high does Macklin Celebrini go? Higher than we've been saying.

Will Smith and the driver-or-passenger question

Pricing the Celebrini extension

An undrafted right wing from Lincoln, Mass., posted the highest 5v5 expected goals per 60 on a Sharks roster that included Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, William Eklund, and Tyler
