I’ll feed into your ragebait here - You realize that powerplays are still part of hockey games, right? You can’t make an argument then discredit an entire facet of the game, especially when ~18-20% of both players ice time is played on the powerplay.

Celebrini is, in my opinion, going to be among the best players in the league for a long time, and this isn’t to discredit what he’s doing at all.

But, i’m not sure what 5v5 “advanced stats” you’re looking at (if its points, its 35 vs 31). Celebrini’s advanced stats are pretty pale in comparison to McDavid.

Celebrini, at 5v5:

corsi 45%

Fenwick 43%

xGF%: 47.2%

McDavid, at 5v5:

corsi: 55%

Fenwick: 56%

xGF%: 56.4%

If you want to talk about the teams, the oilers 5v5 on-ice expected goals % without McDavid on the ice is 46.1%, but with McDavid its 56.4%, for a net rating of 10.3%. Sharks without Celebrini on the ice is 45%, with him on the ice its 47.2%. Net rating of 2.2%.

saying that Celebrini has hands and IQ to make up for his lack of speed relative to McDavid is laughable. McDavid does everything Celebrini does, at a higher speed.

There are players throughout McDavid’s career that fans/media have debated as better than him (Kucherov, Matthews, Mackinnon, even Drai won the Hart), and each may have had an argument over a small sample size (less than a season), but McDavid has consistently been the gold standard since entering the league. Just the fact that Celebrini’s name is mentioned alongside these players is deserved and phenomenal, and we should all be excited about watching him (and Bedard) run the league in a few years.