The 2024 Upper Deck NHL Draft will be held at Sphere in Las Vegas. The first round will be June 28 (7 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+, SN, TVAS) and rounds 2-7 are June 29 (11:30 ET; ESPN+, NHLN, SN, SN1). NHL.com is counting down to the draft with in-depth profiles on top prospects, podcasts and other features. Full draft coverage can be found here.
Macklin Celebrini has been projected to be the No. 1 pick of the 2024 Upper Deck NHL Draft long before the season started.
On the latest "NHL Draft Class" podcast, the Boston University center credited a strong support group for helping him succeed while being in the spotlight.
"I had an amazing group around this whole year, my family, my friends and my teammates, my coaches," Celebrini said. "I had a lot of people who I could kind of lean on, rely on and ask questions to throughout this process. Obviously, no matter where you are, no matter where you play, you're always going to have pressure, different pressure, different expectations.
"The most important thing is doing whatever you can on the ice. As long as you take care of that, I feel like everything else takes care of itself. So that's kind of what I tried to focus on the most, just whatever I can do on the ice, just do the best of my ability and everything else will kind of figure itself out."
It certainly worked for Celebrini, the youngest player in NCAA hockey. As a freshman, the 17-year-old finished third among all players with 64 points (32 goals, 32 assists) in 38 games and won the Hobey Baker Award as the top men's college player.
The San Jose Sharks, who have the No. 1 pick, likely will call Celebrini's name. Director of amateur scouting Chris Morehouse joined "NHL Draft Class" to discuss Celebrini and the Sharks' draft process, which also includes the No. 14 pick and two selections in the second round.
"I think [Celebrini's] on-ice play speaks for itself," Morehouse said. "He's still 17 until (June 13), so to do what he did at the college level, and you watch him play internationally and just you meet him and get to spend some time with him, you can see and understand where all the hype and excitement comes from. And certainly, we're very fortunate and lucky to be sitting in the in the one hole this year. ...
"Obviously, we're very fortunate, but we also have our first pick, we have 14, we have 33 and 42. That's a really good opportunity for our group to continue to build what we put together last year."
The podcast is free, and listeners can subscribe on all podcast platforms, including iTunes and Spotify. It also is available on NHL.com/multimedia/podcasts and the NHL app.
