It’s time Tuesday Teasings once again, and today we look at San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini. He recently became the eighth-youngest NHL player to post 100 career points, as he chugs along in his second season now with 40 points in the team’s first 27 games. The Sharks are 13-11-3 right now, and they are a threat (!) for a postseason slot in the Western Conference, believe it or not. So, let’s look at his big numbers.

The seven players who reached 100 points faster than Celebrini include Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky, Dale Hawerchuk, and Pierre Turgeon. Two of those names should be familiar, of course, and if Celebrini has good fortune and health, maybe we can join Lemieux and Gretzky in the Hall of Fame. For now, the San Jose organization and its fans are just thrilled with their young superstar’s abilities and impact on his team.

Last night against the Utah Mammoth, Celebrini didn’t take a single official shot on goal—but he still earned three assists in a 6-3 victory. That’s the ideal hockey player: someone who doesn’t need to score goals in order to impact the game positively. On the season now, the Sharks prize player has a league-best 26 assists to go along with his 14 goals. The best players always have more assists than goals in this sport. Fact.

As we write this, San Jose is seventh in the Western Conference with 29 points. They’ve still been outscored this year by seven goals overall (87-80), but the team has been on a roll since starting out with six straight losses to open the campaign. The Sharks are 13-7-1 since then, and it’s clear the team has turned some kind of corner since starting the year with some rough/tough losses. The team still has a way to go, but … progress.

San Jose fans will take it: since last making the postseason in 2019, the organization has suffered through six consecutive losing seasons that have pretty much decimated the long-time fan base. That can happen after two straight last-place division finishes, of course, which we have documented here. But now, a lot has changed, and this is a team on the rise, so maybe the fans will return in droves to the Shark Tank like before.

We always thought this was the most passionate fan base in the Bay Area (after the now-departed Raiders, of course), but perhaps we wrong about that: every team in this region has a bandwagon fan base now, and that’s more a reflection of the socioeconomic demographics here, though. The average fan can’t afford much entertainment in the sports world, and “tech bros” only show up when a team is winning, obviously.

If you’re a hockey fan, now is the time to get in on the ground level with San Jose before you lose access.