Adam Gaudette immediately dropped the gloves after Macklin Celebrini was hit as the Sharks play at Utah tonight.
Nobody had to ask twice. When the franchise player gets hit, a teammate steps in, and Gaudette was the one who did it.
Celebrini is 20 years old and was the first overall pick in 2024, so the Sharks will always treat him as the player to protect. He has also been in the middle of the physical stuff lately. Celebrini's heated jabs at Kaedan Korczak on Wednesday night were a rare sight for a player in his position.
Gaudette isn't the name you expect on a highlight reel. He's 30, a fifth-round pick in 2015, and he's played 373 NHL games.
This season he has six games for San Jose and no points. A forward in that spot earns his ice time with moments like this one.
The Sharks were in the second intermission at Utah when this was written. The standings help explain the edge in the room: San Jose is 8-11-2 and 2-7-1 over its last 10, and it lost in a shootout to Pittsburgh on Wednesday.
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Celebrini, meanwhile, keeps producing. He has 23 points in 19 games, with 3 power-play goals, and he's also collected 14 penalty minutes. Opponents know where the Sharks' offense starts, and they're going after him.
Why Gaudette's response matters for a struggling Sharks team
A losing team can go quiet when its best player takes a shot. San Jose didn't wait around.
We like what Gaudette did. A fourth-line forward who answers right away tells the star he doesn't have to fight every battle himself, and that carries weight in a dressing room that has lost 11 games already. Celebrini can keep scoring while somebody else handles the rough stuff.
The risk is obvious, too. Fights don't fix a minus-21 goal differential, and the Sharks need results more than they need toughness.
San Jose returns home to face Nashville on Sunday, and Celebrini will be on the ice after another night of opponents going after him.
This article was written with the help of artificial intelligence, based on public reports and official sources.
How should the Sharks handle opponents targeting Macklin Celebrini?
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