O Celeste how you make the game of hockey look easy. Ah to hear the roar of the crowd as you zip into the offensive zone, and yet relish in the deafening silence as everyone hears the ping of the puck off the post as it goes top cheddar far side. You are truly, are one of the greatest players to ever play in the J.

For those living under a rock let me introduce you Celeste Desjardins, pick #47! in the S73 SMJHL Entry draft. They are a dynamic Left Wing force that has been making opposing GMs look stupid for passing on them all season.  Here a quick stat breakdown:

Goals: 26 Good for 7th in the SMJHL, 1st amongst Rookie Skaters
Assists: 29 Tied for 1st among rookies
Points:55 Tied for 8th in the SMJHL, 1st amongst rookies

This kid's a world beater. No one has been able to stop them, not the bottom feeding team like Kelowna,Great Falls or St.Louis but most importantly not even the league leading Whalers.

Some terrible power rankings have them rated as low as 36th for the upcoming SHL S74 draft? Which leads me to believe some players are using SHL connections to bump them higher on those lists. Some scouts have questioned their defensive game to which the stats don't really confirm.

Hits: 102 4th amongst rookies
Plus/Minus: +14  9th in the SMJHL, 3rd amongst rookies
Corsi For% of 57.1 while playing on the first line not sheltered on a bottom line like most rookies

The only stat that is a knock against them is their Give Away/ Take Away ratio which is 0.41. When asked about this ratio this is what Celeste had to say

"Listen I'm not here to play defence. I am here to to score goals and win games. Obviously turnovers happen in hockey, it is unavoidable, and when you have the puck as much as I do I am going to have more turn overs than a third line player. If I do turn it over I know it's not a big deal because Quebec has the best defence in the league and they will get it right back for me to continue scoring."

Now you must be thinking there must be other rookies that come close to Céleste and you may have heard of them:

Alexi Piastri Goals 60
Bender Junior Goals 57
Gritty McGritterson Goals 57
Cale Salad Goals 55
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That's right Céleste doesn't have any current peers that compare to them, so we have to look at the all time goal scorers. With 26 Goals at the halfway mark of the season, Céleste is projecting to finish top 5 all time in goals as a rookie. 

Top Alltime points scorers:
Bender Junior 124
Alekss Ivanova 116
Bender Junior 112
Alekss Ivanova 109
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Currently Aleks and Bender have the top seasons alltime in the SMJHL. These will be harder to break as Céleste will need to keep up her passing and goal scoring at historic paces but they do have an out side shot to knock one of these entry's out of the top.

Besides being an amazing on ice player, her teammates all love them. Céleste is a staple in the Quebec Locker room, and can usually be found either in a fierce chirper war with Sonja Solberg (Another Top Rookie), or being made fun of by Juan Tymer(RD) for having a worse faceoff stats than him. The whole organization has been better since they arrived hence why they were given an 'A' almost immediately after arriving.

In conclusion, If your a SHL GM tune into the SMJHL streams to see why you should be trying to get the first overall pick for Céleste or simply ask anyone on Quebec. 


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I don't know if I can use first media since I wrote a few articles during draft week but this is my first non draft post so I'm gonna try.