After a rocking start to the season, the Colorado Avalanche have been inconsistent at best recently, with wins in just three of their last eight games. One of the things that have remained steady for the Avs is their superstar defenseman, Cale Makar.
Entering Tuesday night’s games, Makar is second in the NHL in scoring by a defenseman with 18 points. He only trails the sizzling Quinn Hughes in that department, as the Vancouver Canucks star has racked up 23 points through his first 15 games this season. Makar has been a driving force on both ends of the ice for Colorado for the past few years, and the team might need him now more than ever.
Makar Off to Typical Hot Start
Since scoring a goal on his first NHL shift in the 2019 Postseason, Makar has been no stranger to making quick impressions. He has scored at least a point in all but three of Colorado’s games this season and is currently in the midst of a four-game point-scoring streak. He has a goal and six assists over that span. That continues a very consistent trend for the steady defenseman, who has become accustomed to hot starts throughout his budding career.
Makar had 15 assists and 18 points through his first 14 games last season. In the first 14 games of the 2021-22 season – in which he won the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defender – Makar had eight goals and 16 points. In fact, the fewest points Makar has ever logged through the first 14 games of a season was 11 in 2019-20. He was just 20 years old when that campaign started. He’s also never had more than two consecutive scoreless games in the first 14 games of any of his five seasons.
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Makar’s 18 points are currently tied with Nathan MacKinnon for second on the team in points, trailing Mikko Rantanen’s team-leading 21 points. Rantanen is also off to a great start, tallying 10 goals through the first 14 contests. That’s great for those three players, but they’re the only Avs with double-digit points, so far this season. This is a common start for Makar, but the rest of the Avalanche need to start getting things sorted out if they want to get back to the winning ways that started the season.
Avalanche Still Building Chemistry
There are a lot of new faces on the offensive side for Colorado, with seven newcomers among the 12 forwards this year. Head coach Jared Bednar has had to juggle the lines a bit to try and rattle up some chemistry, but the results have been mixed. The Avalanche started the season winning their first six games, but have been shut out three times since then and suffered a dismal 8-2 thrashing at the hands of the rival St. Louis Blues on Nov. 11. That defeat – and the four third-period goals for St. Louis –prompted uncharacteristic criticisms from Bednar.
The defensive corps was supposed to be the team’s backbone entering the season, but even they’ve seen some shifting around of the pairings. Samuel Girard and Josh Manson were scratched from the team’s most recent win over the Seattle Kraken on Nov. 13, giving Sam Malinski his NHL debut and Caleb Jones some time paired up with Bowen Byram. Makar and linemate Devon Toews stay consistent as the top pairing, but the others have been shaky behind them.
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Makar’s offense will likely always be there, as his style of play lends to him creating chances around him. It’s the rest of the defensive corps that needs to pick things up while the offensive figures things out. The Avalanche blueliners don’t need to score multiple goals every night, but they need to at least get points out of more than Makar. Even playing alongside Makar, Toews only has seven points this season – which is a bit behind the 50-point pace he’s posted the last two campaigns.
What the Hot Start Means for Makar
The sizzling start might not be anything new for Makar, but it puts him in the early conversation as one of the favorites for the Norris Trophy. Although given to the top defenseman, it’s become an offensive contest over the past few seasons. Erik Karlsson won the award for the third time last year, and no one will confuse him for anything close to a lockdown defender anytime soon. When Makar won the Norris Trophy in 2022 there were complaints that Nashville Predators star Roman Josi was robbed – mainly because Josi scored more points.
Makar is likely to be a fixture in the top three of the Norris Trophy voting for years to come, and the trend towards giving it to more offensive players doesn’t hurt Makar’s case. Of course, Hughes is currently the early odds-on favorite to win the award this season, with Makar sitting in second. If Makar can keep up his usual consistency, he should be a finalist for the award for the fourth year in a row.
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Makar and the rest of the Avalanche are interested in winning a different trophy for the second time in three seasons. The team is clearly in the midst of a Stanley Cup window, and they’re hoping last year’s first-round exit at the hands of the Kraken is an anomaly. Despite the recent struggles, Colorado will likely be in the hunt for a high playoff seed in the Western Conference. If the Avalanche are to get to the NHL’s mountaintop once again, expect Makar to be right in the middle of things.
