SAN JOSE — Macklin Celebrini’s contract announcement on July 29 communicated something about the San Jose Sharks more clearly than any rebuild update or press conference had managed to do. The NHL’s highest-paid player was 20 years old and playing in San Jose. The immediate question after the $18.8 million annual figure was what it meant for Will Smith — a question the organization has left unanswered publicly for six weeks.
The Sharks have five days to answer it with an eight-year contract.
The collective bargaining agreement’s transition date is Monday. Until September 15, a team can extend a player under its control for as many as eight years. After that, the maximum for a contract with the same team falls to seven. Smith’s entry-level contract runs through the 2026-27 season, making him a restricted free agent next summer regardless of what happens before Monday. San Jose retains his rights, so the urgency is not over whether Smith remains a Shark. It is about how long the organization can secure him and what an eight-year commitment does to the annual value of the deal.
Smith was selected fourth overall in the 2023 draft, four picks after Celebrini went first. There was unusual consensus at the top of that class: Celebrini went first because the industry viewed him as the clear No. 1 prospect, while the three players selected between him and Smith were considered marginally closer to NHL readiness. Two years into their professional careers, however, the distinction between Celebrini and Smith is less about the gap between the first and fourth picks than the production difference between a potentially generational center and a highly talented young winger still developing his complete game. The extension window gives San Jose an opportunity to put a price on Smith’s trajectory, not simply his production to date.
That output, in 2025-26, was 24 goals and 35 assists in 69 games. His rookie season had produced 45 points in 74 games. Acceptable for a fourth overall pick in year one. His second season made the case that acceptable was the floor, not the ceiling.
The 14-point improvement does not fully capture the shift. Smith’s offensive game as a rookie was built on creation inside the offensive zone, where his skating and processing speed let him find angles that most forwards reach too slowly. His sophomore season showed a player who could generate going forward through the neutral zone, carry across the blue line against a set defense, and finish in positions that required strength as much as anticipation. The league does not allow a forward to run those plays successfully unless the puck battles that precede them are won first. Smith won more of them in year two.
The market context is more layered than the Celebrini headline suggests. The $18.8 million annual figure is not a Smith comp. It represents what NHL teams believe a generational center commands in 2026 after 45 goals and 70 assists at age nineteen. Smith’s 59-point line places him in a different conversation, one about comparable forwards in their extension windows rather than historical anomalies. Yahoo Sports reported in September that the Sharks are moving toward a long-term extension for Smith with the CBA deadline setting the timetable. The direction is established. The contract is not.
The eight-year structure matters beyond what the arithmetic suggests. A deal signed before Monday can tie a player through his age-twenty-nine season, buying out his prime years at today’s rate. A deal signed after Monday carries a seven-year maximum under the new CBA. The difference between those two terms, at any plausible annual value, is one full season of guaranteed money. For a player drafted in the top five who posted 59 points at twenty-one, that season carries meaning the numbers alone do not translate. Eight years says the organization believes in the destination. Seven years raises a question it does not answer.
What San Jose cannot afford is for this to drift. The Sharks’ ability to attract talent in future off-seasons depends in part on the story they are writing now. Celebrini staying is one line of that story. Smith signing before the window narrows is another. The organization spent two years positioning these two players as the center of the next era of San Jose hockey. Letting Monday pass without a contract would not end that positioning. It would complicate it in ways that no August press conference can fully undo.
The Bedard situation in Chicago and the Batherson situation in Ottawa reflect the same Monday pressure across the league. San Jose’s version is structurally cleaner than either: the question is not whether to commit to Will Smith but whether to commit to him for eight years before Monday or settle for seven after it. Grier said in August he wants Smith long-term. Five days remain to make it official.
