How does Macklin Celebrini stack up against last year's top NHL Draft prospect?

To this point, Macklin Celebrini has not gotten the hype that last year's first overall pick in the NHL Draft did. But Celebrini and Connor Bedard appear to be close comparables.

Macklin, the consensus choice to be the first selection of the NHL Draft on June 28-29 in Las Vegas, won the Hobey Baker Award on Friday. The freshman Boston University center, who will turn 18 on June 13, is the youngest player to ever win the honor of college hockey's top player.

Celebrini had 32 goals and 32 assists for 64 points in 38 games this season, which ended on Thursday when BU lost 2-1 in overtime to Denver in an NCAA semifinal game.

According to scouting reports, Celebrini's shot, puck-handling and anticipation are not quite at the level of Bedard, who is the leading candidate for the NHL Calder Trophy (Rookie of the Year) with the Chicago Blackhawks this season. But they're not far below. 

According to an analytic tool called NHL Equivalent, which projects what percentage of a player's production in a lower league would translate to in the NHL, Bedard (for his production in the Major Junior Western Hockey League) was rated at 62. Celebrini, for his numbers in NCAA Division I's Hockey East Conference, is rated at 60.

Bedard, now 18, has 22 goals and 59 points in 64 games.

But Celebrini is a little bigger (6 feet, 190 pounds) than Bedard (5-10, 185) and he is said to be better without the puck and better defensively. Bedard plays for the second-worst team in the league in Chicago, but his minus-39 is still jarring. In fact, the comparison has been made that if the pair ever wind up on the same NHL team, Celebrini would be the Jonathan Toews or Mark Messier type to Bedard's Patrick Kane or Wayne Gretzky role.

Also like Bedard, Celebrini was born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 

The Celebrini family moved to the San Jose, Calif., area in 2019 when Macklin was 13. His father had been hired as the NBA Golden State Warriors director of sports medicine and performance the previous year. 

Macklin played with the San Jose Jr. Sharks AAA program for a year, moved on to Shattuck St. Mary's Prep School program in Faribault, Minn., for two seasons and then skated for the Chicago Steel of the Major Junior United States Hockey League before enrolling at BU.

He could be moving on to the NHL next season.