Macklin Celebrini signs five-year, $94 million Sharks extension, richest deal in NHL history

San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini has signed a five-year, $94 million contract extension, a deal reported as the richest in NHL history. The agreement, reached with general manager Mike Grier and owner Hasso Plattner, replaces the final stretch of his prior entry-level contract and keeps Celebrini with the franchise well beyond his current window of team-building focus.

Celebrini entered the league under the standard three-year entry-level structure, and as of the time of the extension, he had one year remaining on a deal that paid him $2.925 million. The extension converts his next phase into a long-term commitment at an average annual value of $18.8 million. According to the report, that figure tops the previous high-water mark of $18 million per year set when Anaheim reached a five-year agreement with Leo Carlsson after an offer sheet matching the max offer-sheet range.

With the new contract, Celebrini is now projected to remain under team control through the 2031-32 season. For the Sharks, it is the clearest roster statement of the offseason, tying the franchise to a cornerstone player at the center spot rather than spreading leadership across multiple short-term pieces.

The timing is significant because it arrives before the Sharks would have had to plan around the uncertainty that can come with a player approaching unrestricted free agency. Locking in the top of the payroll hierarchy also changes the internal math for roster construction, especially for teams expected to spend around their emerging core while filling out depth and special-teams roles with lower-cost contracts.

Celebrini’s camp and San Jose’s front office also avoided the typical late-stage negotiations that can drag into the final year of an entry-level contract. In practice, extensions like this function as an early alignment on valuation and role, giving both sides a clearer runway for training, line-building, and team expectations leading into the prime years covered by the contract.

From a league-wide perspective, the “richest deal ever” framing matters because it sets a new ceiling for how the top echelon of young talent is priced as the salary cap environment continues to normalize around its highest-impact players. It also raises the bar for comparable negotiations by other teams with young, high-usage centers and franchise-impact forwards at similar stages.

For Sharks fans and evaluators, the question now shifts from compensation to performance. The contract makes Celebrini the long-term face of the club’s competitive identity, so the next watch items will be how San Jose organizes its forward group around him and how the team’s overall roster choices support his development across the years covered by the extension.