Macklin Celebrini and San Jose Sharks discuss loss to St. Louis Blues

SAN JOSE – Macklin Celebrini scored a goal and an assist in his NHL debut for the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night at SAP Center. But that was no consolation for the first overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.

Here's what the Sharks said after Thursday's loss

RYAN WARSOFSKY

What went wrong in the third period?

“I just sat back in the third period. This is what you get.”

Thoughts on Celebrini?

“I thought he was good. Thought he was really good. Obviously the points are one thing, but there are some things he needs to learn without the puck, him and Will (Smith). But I thought both were solid in their debuts.”

What do you think of Tyler Toffoli and this line (with Celebrini and Eklund) in general?

“That line was good for us.”

On Gushchin?

“I thought he was a bit inconsistent at times. He tried to do some things. Had a good second third. He obviously takes a penalty in the third half. But I thought he was solid.”

What do you see in the first period?

“Our puck play through the neutral zone was very poor. We didn't manage our shifts very well. So there were a lot of teaching moments in that first period, and I enjoyed our second one, so a lot of teaching moments tonight.”

What worked in the second period?

“We imagined that the puck would cross the neutral zone during our breakouts. We held the pucks down low. We had some momentum there with the power play. We created some offense and the guys started; I thought maybe they had a little too tight a grip on their sticks in the first game and just played a little looser in the second game. But there’s a lot to learn tonight too.”

What can you learn from the third lesson?

“Don’t sit back.”

Teachable moment?

“Yeah, it’s hard to win, isn’t it? It's hard to win this league. It's hard to win on a single night. There are no teams that just give you two points. So we will learn from it. We will fill up the second period. We have to learn a lot and get a lot better, with the puck but also without the puck. It will be a growth moment for our group. But the most important thing is that we have to learn from it and move forward.”

Why do you think the group took their foot off the gas?

“Just a young group getting some experience together, a lot of new faces there, a lot of scar tissue from the last few years on how to win. It's hard to win this league. It's all the little things. It's not a big deal. It's not the points; It's not the goals and assists. It's little things. Stopping at pucks. It's about playing without the puck, being in tackles, playing defense, all the things that we saw get out of control in the third period, and a good team like this will capitalize on that.”

Do you need to tell the group to get out of the “here we go” attitude?

“We’ve already addressed that.”

You talked about how it's harder to play against a team in this building. Did you understand that despite the fighting tonight?

“Yeah, I thought we did some really good things. already in the first one. I know the shots were completely one-sided, but we did some really good things in the first period that we've talked about throughout training camp. Here too we have to get better every day. That's what I'm going to ask of this group. That's what I'm going to ask myself, and I need to learn and go back and maybe look at some choices that I could have made differently and then go
from there.”

Did you expect Celebrini to have an evening like this? Is that a surprise?

“No, we saw the whole training camp and the rookie tournament. He obviously has strong motor skills, a high hockey IQ, can do things very quickly and wants something to happen every shift. So I’m not surprised at all.”

He competed against Robert Thomas for most of the evening. Did you feel comfortable with that? Was this the plan all along?

“Yeah, I thought we felt comfortable with him in that duel. I thought he did a really good job in this match. We have to throw him into the fight here and let him go. So he has to learn and get better. Just like every one of them
us.”

Nice to get contributions from your bottom six and your PK?

“I thought the PK was good, the bottom six was good. I thought Kunin and Goodrow's line was solid. “We just have to keep getting better in certain situations.”