Honest question on this from somebody who doesn’t watch Celebrini much - but knows he’s been damn impressive.
He seems to have come into the NHL mostly “formed” - meaning, his game pretty complete. I know he’ll get better but… how? Besides getting bigger and stronger?
I look at Michkov and there are a couple of obvious deficiencies - skating, stamina. So fairly tangible physical qualities to improve which will lead to increase ice time, and scoring.
I’m not saying Celebrini won’t improve but what is he improving? He doesn’t seem to have a weakness at 18 already so just curious how much actual untapped potential there is.
I'm not really qualified to answer this, as I said, I believe last night was the 9th game of his I've watched at the NHL level, but I think he could definitely improve his shot and his shot selection.
He really had great edge work, and pretty explosive first step and acceleration and guys like that are often able to use those abilities to create seams both for threading passes and finding shooting lanes.
Celebrini is effective at this, but often his shot selection isn't utilizing screens or shooting coming out screens and his release itself I think can be improved to be a little more hidden making a sudden seam even more deadly. (Interestingly, and again, I've seen less than 10 games, but he appears to have very good "catch and release," meaning when he is given the puck in a shooting position, he's great at taking the pass and getting the shot off very quickly. Where I think his release could be improved is when he already has possession and he's carrying the puck and then making his shot.)
He already protects the puck very well and his boardwork is impressive for a rookie, but size and strength will only make this aspect of his game better.
With all of that being said, if I had to guess at where he will make the most improvement is leaning and adapting to the speed and strength of NHL players. He seems to have excellent hockey IQ and his ability to anticipate and predict, for lack of a better word, what his opponents will do is very impressive. As he learns and adjusts to the pro-game, this skill set will become much more pronounced and he will become much deadlier offensively and defensively.