NHL Network ranked Celebrini fifth in the league. San Jose made him captain. The organization is not being subtle about what this rebuild is built around.

I already noted the captaincy when it happened on Thursday, and the believer column the next day made the case for why the C alone doesn't fix the defense. Both of those pieces are right. What's worth adding now, a few days later, is simply the accumulation: fifth-best player in the NHL by NHL Network's count, a five-year extension locked in at $18.8 million annually, the captaincy at 20, the video game cover. The franchise has stacked every symbolic and contractual marker it has onto one player, and that player is still in his second NHL season.

The production last year backed the confidence — 73 points in 48 games, a plus-12 on a team that finished 39-44. He was the best thing happening on most nights. The question isn't whether Celebrini can be that player. It's whether San Jose has built enough around him that the weight doesn't become the story. The opening preseason loss to Anaheim, a 6-2 drubbing, was a reminder that the new defensive core hasn't found its footing yet.

My read: the organization has done everything right in terms of committing to Celebrini. The next few months will show whether the pieces around him are ready to make that commitment mean something in the standings.