Macklin Celebrini and the Sharks won a battle of dueling hat tricks – thanks to the 19-year-old’s second career five-point game – as the 2024 No. 1 pick added his name to a list with just three other teenagers in NHL history (one of those being The Great One).
* The Mammoth saw a number of franchise-firsts achieved, including the club’s longest winning streak, Logan Cooley scoring Utah’s first natural hat trick and setting a benchmark for most points in a period, as well as Clayton Keller becoming their first 100-point scorer.
* Overall, Thursday featured two five-point performances, three hat tricks, four games with 11-plus goals, 18 game-tying goals (90 tallies overall) and 170 players with a point. It was just the second day in the past 32 years to feature four or more games with 11-plus goals (also 4 on April 16, 2022).
* The Devils will put their six-game winning streak on the line during Friday’s four-game slate, which begins with the Maple Leafs facing the Sabres on ESPN+.
CELEBRINI, SMITH COMBINE FOR NINE POINTS AS SHARKS WIN ON BROADWAY
Broadway was the stage for the first dueling hat tricks contest of the season as Sharks sophomore Macklin Celebrini (3-2—5) and Rangers forward Taylor Raddysh (3-0—3) each tallied thrice during a back-and-forth matchup that ended when Will Smith (2-2—4) iced San Jose’s first victory of the season in overtime. It was the first time an NHL game featured dueling hat tricks since April 9, 2025, which also happened to include a 3-2—5 performance by Celebrini and a four-point showing by Smith (along with 4-0—4 from MIN’s Joel Eriksson Ek).
* Celebrini became the fourth teenager in NHL history with multiple five-point games in his career, following Wayne Gretzky (5), Dale Hawerchuk (2) and Bryan Trottier (2).
* Celebrini also became the fifth No. 1 pick in NHL history to record multiple career hat tricks as a teenager, following Hawerchuk (5), Eric Lindros (2), Owen Nolan (2) and Wendel Clark (2). He is one of 15 players in NHL history with multiple career hat tricks as a teenager, and just the third in the past 32 years, along with Patrik Laine (4) and Peter Mueller (2).
* Celebrini and Smith became the third set of teammates in NHL history to each have four-plus points in the same game multiple times before their 21st birthdays, joining Gretzky and Jari Kurri (3x), as well as Gretzky and Mark Messier (2x).
* Every goal scored by the Sharks on Thursday had a teenager involved in the scoring, with Celebrini (age 19) and Michael Misa (age 18) combining for that feat. Dating to Oct. 21, San Jose has had eight straight goals with a teenager notching a point – the longest such stretch since 2017-18 when the Jets also did so (Laine had a point on 8 straight from March 2-8, 2018).
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COOLEY, KELLER HAVE MAMMOTH NIGHT FOR UTAH
Logan Cooley (3-1—4) and Clayton Keller (2-1—3) both achieved franchise firsts as they helped the Mammoth win their fifth straight game – the second-longest active winning streak in the NHL (behind NJD: 6-0-0) and now the longest run in Utah history. The Mammoth (6-2-0, 12 points) have the most wins in the Western Conference (6) and are one point back of the League-leading Avalanche (5-0-3, 13 points).
* Cooley tallied all four of his points in the opening frame to account for the franchise’s first natural hat trick and set Mammoth records for most goals and points in a period. Cooley scored his three goals in a span of 4:48, marking the NHL’s fastest hat trick since Joel Eriksson Ek (2:18 w/ MIN on April 9, 2025).
* Keller became the first Mammoth player to record a multi-point streak of four games and improved his totals with Utah to 34-68—102 (89 GP), making him the first American player to be any franchise’s first 100-point player.
GOALS GALORE FEATURED IN #NHLSTATS: LIVE UPDATES
The Thursday edition of #NHLStats: Live Updates captured all storylines spanning from hat tricks to comebacks to milestones, including all four contests that featured 11 goals. Three of those came from the Ducks and Islanders, who both potted seven, as well as the Oilers who scored six and became the third team this season to record a third-period, multi-goal comeback win.
* Mikael Granlund (2-3—5) became the first Anaheim player with a five-point game since Ryan Getzlaf on Nov. 24, 2015, as the Ducks scored seven goals in a contest once again following Oct. 11 – the first team this season with multiple seven-goal outings. The only other campaigns in the past 10 years to feature multiple seven-goal games by Anaheim were 2022-23 and 2015-16 (both w/ 2 GP). Granlund and Nikita Nesterenko (0-4—4) became the first Ducks teammates in more than five years to record four-plus points apiece in the same contest, while Nesterenko posted the club’s first four-assist performance in more than seven years (Corey Perry on Feb. 5, 2018).
* Matthew Schaefer’s career-opening point streak came to an end but the Islanders had other players find the score sheet in his place. The Islanders had at least seven players with multiple points in the same game – the most by any team this season – for the third time in the past 20 years, following Jan. 14, 2020 (7) and Dec. 21, 2019 (7).
* After the Canadiens erased a 3-1 deficit with four straight goals (including two by NHL goals leader Cole Caufield; tied), the Oilers erased a multi-goal deficit of their own to improve to 2-0-1 on home ice. Connor McDavid (0-3—3) collected the primary assists on two third-period goals that allowed his club to even the score and, in the process, became the third-fastest player in NHL history to record 200 multi-assist games (720 GP) behind Wayne Gretzky (449 GP) and Mario Lemieux (580 GP).
CROSBY, MALKIN HELP PENGUINS DEFEAT DEFENDING CHAMPS
Sidney Crosby (2-1—3) and Evgeni Malkin (0-2—2) combined on a pair of goals and helped the Penguins skate to a fourth straight win with a victory against the defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers. Crosby recorded his 497th career multi-point game to tie Penguins legend and former teammate Mario Lemieux for the sixth most in NHL history. Crosby now sits two points shy of becoming the ninth player in NHL history with 1,700 career points.
* Crosby and Malkin combined on the same goal for the 380th and 381st time in their careers and passed Ted Lindsay and Gordie Howe (379) for the 16th-most instances by a pair of teammates in NHL history. Only two active duos have combined on more: Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl (489) as well as Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen (382).
* Malkin eclipsed the 10-assist plateau in eight games and tied Howe (8 GP in 1968-69) as the fastest player in NHL history to reach the mark in a season at age 39 or older.
KRAKEN, BLACKHAWKS, HURRICANES CONTINUE STRONG STARTS TO 2025-26
The Kraken, Blackhawks and Hurricanes each skated to victory Thursday to continue their strong starts to the season:
* Team USA Olympic hopeful Joey Daccord made 32 saves to shut out the Jets in a matchup against fellow American Connor Hellebuyck, ending Winnipeg and Hellebuyck’s winning streaks while improving to 4-1-1 on the season. The Kraken became the first team to shut out the Jets at home since Jan. 13, 2024.
* Blackhawks forward Frank Nazar, another player vying for a spot with Team USA in February, tallied 1-1—2 while fellow American forward Ryan Donato (a former Olympian; 5-1—6 in 2018) scored twice to help Chicago extend its point streak to five games (4-0-1).
* The Avalanche, donning their throwback Nordiques jerseys, overcame a three-goal deficit to force extra time, but Seth Jarvis (1-1—2) scored the shootout-deciding goal for the Hurricanes (to go along with the 4 GWGs he has so far in 2025-26), who skated to victory in their Whalers uniforms and improved to 6-1-0 during Heritage Night at Ball Arena. Jarvis and Sebastian Aho (1-0—1) became the third duo in Hurricanes/Whalers history to both start a season on a seven-game point streak, following Ron Francis (11 GP) and Risto Siltanen (7 GP) in 1984-85 as well as Aho (7 GP) and Andrei Svechnikov (7 GP) in 2021-22.
QUICK CLICKS
* NHL, NOBULL announce multiyear partnership in United States
* 2026 NHL Draft Diary: Gavin McKenna
* Avalanche celebrates Brent Burns’ 1,500th NHL game with special pregame ceremony
* Nostalgia Night: Avalanche, Hurricanes wear Nordiques, Whalers throwbacks
* FLA-BOS delivers ESPN’s second most-viewed regular season game of new NHL deal
BATTLE OF THE QEW TAKES OVER ESPN+, SPORTSNET AND TVA SPORTS
Auston Matthews and the Maple Leafs will travel across Queen Elizabeth Way to KeyBank Center in Buffalo to clash with Rasmus Dahlin and the Atlantic Division-rival Sabres in the first game of a home-and-home set. The two clubs are meeting for a home-and-home set on consecutive days for the ninth time and first since Nov. 29-30, 2019; the last time one club won both games was Oct. 30-31, 1998 (BUF: 4-1 & 6-3).
CONTINUING THEIR STRING OF SUCCESS: DEVILS IN ACTION FRIDAY
The Devils have won their past six games and will put the NHL’s longest active winning streak on the line when they welcome the Sharks – who are coming off Macklin Celebrini’s five-point showing and their first win of the season – to Prudential Center. The game will air live in Australia as the second game of this season’s NHL Saturday Morning schedule.
* New Jersey’s string of consecutive victories come on the heels of a season-opening loss; the longest win streak immediately following a season-opening loss is held by the 1982-83 Islanders (8-0-0 from Oct. 7-23, 1982).
* Brenden Dillon has played a part in New Jersey’s recent success and has scored the game-winning goal in each of the past two games. He can become the sixth defenseman in NHL history to score the winning tally in three straight games; Shea Theodore (3 GP in 2021-22), Seth Jones (3 GP in 2017-18), Andrei Markov (3 GP in 2012-13), Al MacInnis (3 GP in 1993-94) and Mike O’Connell (3 GP in 1982-83) are the only ones to do so to date.
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