Sunday overreactions: Celebrini should be a lock for Team Canada

If you're buying a ticket to an NHL game this season and want to make sure it's worth the money, there's only a short list of players who could provide more value than McLean Celebrini.

San Jose Sharks The star had a very strong rookie season and will reach a new stratosphere going forward. Celebrini looks faster and more polished – as if he is trying to prove something.

That motivation may indicate he's worthy of a coveted spot on Canada's Olympic team when it hits the ice in February in Milan. Celebrini was left out of the 4 Nations Face-Off celebrations, but given the way he has started the season, you'd be hard-pressed not to include him in the squad.

Let's look at this, as well as some other early season overreactions.

Celebrini deserves a spot on Team Canada

Given a small sample size of a dozen or so games this season, it seems like Celebrini might actually be worth including on Team Canada. He ranks in the league's top five in scoring with 18 points in 12 games, including incredible individual performances. Celebrini already has a five-point game and two three-point games, and he scored the overtime winner and another in San Jose's first two wins of the season. Are there 14 Canadian forwards better than Celebrini right now? Of course it doesn't look like it.

Any argument against Celebrini's absence from the squad based solely on talent does not hold water. Maybe you could point to his inexperience and the fact that he's only 19 years old, but Celebrini doesn't look like your average sophomore pro. He has improved in several key areas from his rookie year to his sophomore year, which shows more attention to detail in his game. Last year, Celebrini was a minus-31 on a brutal Sharks team, and in a similar tight spot this year on a team with a minus-10 goal differential, he was plus-1. Celebrini's numbers also improved in the faceoff circle, from 48 percent to 51 percent.

Plus, if you look at Canada's Four Nations roster, there may be a few players that Celebrini could beat at the Olympics. Will Mark Stone be healthy enough to play? Travis Konecny ​​got off to a slow start this season and has been scratched twice since last February. Then there's Brad Marchand, who had a great postseason but looked a little overwhelmed at times by the pace of the best-to-best game.

Even if Canada selects Celebrini as their 14th forward, it could be a good investment in the team's future. Regardless of whether he competes in the Olympics or not, Celebrini will be an important part of the national team in the future and will play a key role in several future competitions. However, by February it will be clear that any inclusion of Celebrini in the squad will not be simply to bring him along for experience. He looks ready to play a decisive role in the fight for the gold medal.

Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield promoted the idea Montreal Canadiens to an early-season surge, but a surprise member of the roster may be the main reason the team is at the top of the Atlantic. Backup (or maybe now former backup) goaltender Jakub Dobes is a stellar 6-0-0 with a .930 save percentage and has started four of the last six games. He also has 8.2 goals saved above expected, which puts him in the top five in the NHL. The Canadiens rely heavily on Dobs and Samuel Montembeault has only played twice in two weeks, so is Dobs the No. 1 in Montreal right now?

Not so fast. Small sample sizes are a dangerous thing when it comes to goaltenders, and Dobs doesn't yet have the experience to officially take the keys to the Canadiens team. As good as he looked, he still only played 22 career games, and giving him consistently four out of every five or six starts would be difficult.

Meanwhile, Montembeault has posted a save percentage above .900 in each of the last three seasons. Those aren't eye-popping numbers, but he didn't play for the New Jersey Devils in the mid-'90s. The Canadiens haven't been a great defensive team over the past few seasons, and Montembeault has performed very well in some less than favorable conditions. What's more, he's handled real starting workload before, appearing in 62 games last season and earning a spot on Team Canada at the Four Nations.

If you're the Canadiens, you'll likely be in Dobes for as long as possible, but you'll also have to do whatever it takes to get Montembeault back on track after a rocky start that could ultimately cost him an Olympic spot.

Given his sample size, you can't count on Dobs for 55 games or so, so at the very least, I'm willing to bet Montembeault will eventually return to a tandem situation.

The Wild and Blues will miss the playoffs

If you were compiling a list of disappointing teams after the first month of the season, Minnesota Wild And St. Louis Blues will be right at the top. The Wild were riding high after signing Kirill Kaprizov and St. Louis was one of the top teams in the second half of last year, but things took a turn for the worse.

The only team worse than the Blues in the West right now is the Calgary Flames, while the Wild are only ahead of the Flames, Blues and Sharks. Minnesota has a goal differential of minus-12, while St. Louis has a goal differential of minus-17.

The Blues blew a four-goal lead against Detroit and have already given up five goals in six different games. Meanwhile, the Wild rank 29th in goals against, 32nd in penalties and 28th in goals against. Not ideal.

None of them look like playoff teams right now, and Utah, Seattle and Chicago, who were on the sidelines last season, are off to strong starts.

I still think that in a long 82-game season, both the Blues and Wild are too good not to figure things out. Mammoth looks like a bandwagon right now and they have enough talent to make the postseason, but I'm not so sure about Chicago and Seattle. I think both of these teams will come back down to earth at some point, opening the door for St. Louis or Minnesota.

The Blues are a strong team well coached by Jim Montgomery, while the Wild boast Kaprizov and Matt Boldy, a pair of elite talents. As long as they don't dig themselves too big a hole in the first month or two, both teams are capable of turning things around. However, St. Louis is now six points out of second place in the wild card, and as Sportsnet's Elliott Friedman annually notes, only one of the seven teams in the cap era has finished four or more points clear of the playoffs after reaching the dance on Nov. 1. The odds are stacked against the Blues.

I think there is a very real possibility that one team will miss out due to Utah's rise, but the other still has a chance to make the postseason.

There's always a big risk when you hand a goalie over 30 years old a big contract, and Ottawa Senators are probably a little nervous about their investments right now. It's the first season of Linus Ullmark's four-year, $8.25 million AAV contract extension, and things aren't going smoothly. Ullmark boasts an .861 save percentage after 11 starts and currently ranks last in goals saved above expected among all qualified goaltenders.

What's worse is that Ullmark's playoff numbers aren't great either. His postseason save percentage is .885 and he posted a .880 save percentage in last year's playoffs against the Toronto Maple Leafs. This may have some Sens fans wondering how long-term Ullmark's contract will be as he approaches 30 years old.

There are several reasons to be concerned about Ullmark's future play. The first is how poorly he's played so far, even though the Senators are actually helping him a lot. The Sens rank ninth in scoring chances, but Ullmark still struggles to keep the puck in his net. As Sportlogiq's Mike Kelly noted this week, Ullmark's biggest struggle is the traffic in front of him.

Shots on goal aren't easy to deal with, but it's clear that Ullmark isn't keeping track of the puck either, and that will become an even bigger problem as he ages and his speed begins to fade.

In Ullmark's Vezina-winning campaign in 2022-23, the Boston Bruins had one of the best seasons in NHL history and showcased a great defensive structure under then-Coach Montgomery. That's not to say the Bruins fully supported Ullmark that season because he was great, but don't expect him to receive that level of support during his time with the Senators.

I don't think Ullmark will have a save percentage below .865 all season, but he has a long way to go to justify hitting that limit. Even though the cap will increase significantly in the next few years, Ottawa won't be thrilled about paying Ullmark, who is about 30 years old, more than $8 million unless he's a top-10 goaltender. And now it’s hard to imagine him returning to this level.

Logan Cooley cashed in this week with an eight-year, $80 million contract extension, and it's well deserved. Cooley is averaging over a point per game this season and looks set to become the team's number one center. Utah Mammoth for years to come, a role that every team would like to retain. Mammoth is off to a great start this season, anchored by a core of young stars that includes a former third overall pick. Cooley was selected in the 2022 draft behind Juraj Slafkowski and Simon Nemec and one pick ahead of Shane Wright, and Utah hasn't regretted the choice one bit. The way things are going, the possibility of Cooley becoming the top player in the draft seems very real.

At the risk of angering a large group of Montreal Canadiens fans, I still think that if this draft were repeated today, Cooley would have to go first overall. Slafkovskiy fits nicely into Montreal's top line, but finding a top center is the most important and difficult task for any lineup, and Cooley averaged 0.72 points per game compared to Slafkovskiy's 0.55. The jury is still out on what kind of impact Nemec will have, and Wright feels he will be a high-quality two-way defensive player, but perhaps not an elite point producer.

Slafkowski wouldn't even have finished second in a replay, but another Canadien in Lane Hutson would have done so, and he would have definitely finished in the top 2. He's a hair's breadth behind Cooley. There's no denying how influential Hutson is and he's already won a Calder Trophy, but given the fact that Cooley could be a franchise center, I'd give him a slight edge due to position. However, both players are incredible and could become the faces of the league in the future.

Contract year Sherwood is a sight to behold.

The powerful winger suddenly found a scoring punch, so much so that he scored nine times in 13 games. Sure, the shooting percentage is 37.5, but the timing couldn't be more perfect. Sherwood will be a free agent after this season and after setting the record for most hits in a single season last year (462), the explosive growth in goals could mean big things for his bank account on a new contract. Any hope of keeping Sherwood at a reasonable price appears to be fading fast. Vancouver Canucks.

Teams love players like Sherwood who can play on the forecheck and show off his weight while also contributing offensively, especially during the playoffs. It's not like he hasn't scored before: Sherwood scored 19 goals last season.

If he can get to 30 this time, Sherwood will get a bigger raise from the $1.5 million he's making now. With the cap set to increase dramatically over the next few seasons, it wouldn't shock me to see Sherwood making $5 million per season with a multi-year term if he hits the open market. If Tanner Jeanneau were given five years at $3.4 million per year, it seems like Sherwood could definitely top that amount.

The Canucks will have to decide how far they are willing to go to keep him.