Who Gets the Glory
Macklin Celebrini had a goal and two assists to break Joe Thornton’s San Jose record for points in a season with 115, and the Sharks used that production to rout the Winnipeg Jets 6-1 on Thursday night in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The 19-year-old Celebrini finished with 45 goals and 70 assists in 82 games in his second NHL season, a stat line that sits at the top of the Sharks’ record book while the rest of the league’s machinery keeps turning out winners and losers.
San Jose closed its season at 39-35-8, missing the playoff for the seventh consecutive season. Winnipeg finished 35-35-12 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2021-22. The Jets are also the fifth NHL team to win the Presidents’ Trophy for the best regular-season record and not qualify for the playoffs the following season, another neat little reminder of how the league’s hierarchy can hand out prestige without delivering anything lasting to the people on the ice or in the stands.
The Record and the Routine
Celebrini’s 115 points surpassed Thornton’s 114-point season in 2006-07, when Thornton also played 82 games. Last season, Celebrini had 63 points in 70 games, with 25 goals and 38 assists. This season’s jump was enough to put him ahead of a franchise benchmark, but the larger structure remained unchanged: one team celebrated a record, while both teams ended the year outside the playoff field.
William Eklund also had a goal and two assists for San Jose. Will Smith had a goal and an assist, Collin Graf, Igor Chernyshov and Michael Misa also scored, and John Klingberg added three assists. Alex Nedeljkovic stopped 25 shots. Cole Koepke scored for Winnipeg. The scoreline was lopsided enough to make the final game look less like a contest than a closing statement from a team that found its offense while the season was already slipping away.
What the Numbers Say About Power
The Sharks’ 6-1 win came in the finale for both teams, a last-night display of individual achievement inside a system that measures success in points, trophies, and playoff berths. Celebrini’s record is the headline figure, but the standings tell the harsher story: San Jose missed the playoff for the seventh consecutive season, and Winnipeg’s season ended with the added humiliation of becoming the fifth Presidents’ Trophy winner to miss the playoffs the next year.
The article offers no rescue from above, no reform package, no comforting institutional fix. It simply records the scoreboard and the standings, the way the league does when the season is over and the winners of the regular-season pageant are left with nothing but a trophy and a missed postseason. For the players at the bottom of the standings, the season ends the same way it always does: with the numbers filed away and the hierarchy intact.