Macklin Celebrini and Caleb Malhotra training together in Burnaby is exactly the kind of image that gets Canucks fans dreaming again.
Grady Sas shared the two on camera at 8 Rinks, Victoria's Malhotra and North Vancouver's Celebrini working out side by side this summer.
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British Columbia keeps producing elite young talent, and plenty of it trains right here in Burnaby during the offseason rather than scattering across the continent.
Malhotra is Vancouver's own prospect, the pick the Canucks landed after missing out on Stenberg at the draft.
Celebrini plays for San Jose, but this photo instantly revives a conversation Canucks fans have been having all summer.
Celebrini just signed a five year extension worth $18,800,000 annually, the richest deal in NHL history, locking him in with San Jose for now.
The Celebrini and Bedard homecoming dream lives on
But five years still means Celebrini hits unrestricted free agency again in his mid-20s, young enough for a real homecoming to actually happen down the road.
Connor Bedard carries the same storyline. Both players grew up in the Vancouver area, and both chose shorter term deals over the full eight years now available before new CBA rules shrink that option.
That choice matters. Waiting out a shorter contract only makes sense for a player comfortable testing the market again, and both Celebrini and Bedard clearly are.
Photos like this one don't move a free agency market on their own, but they keep the storyline alive in a way that pure speculation never quite manages.
Training together in the same city they grew up near, year after year, is a different signal than simply being linked in trade rumors from a distance.
Vancouver is rebuilding right now, which actually works in the team's favor here. The Canucks don't need either player to arrive and save anything immediately.
They just need to still be a legitimate option whenever that decision eventually comes around.
Nothing here confirms anything real is close. But between the extensions both players just signed and summers like this one spent training together back home, the door hasn't closed on this story at all.
Will either Macklin Celebrini or Connor Bedard eventually sign with the Canucks?
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