Cale Makar reminds us all he’s a unicorn

I was pretty curious how this game would go for the Colorado Avalanche. Following a tighter-than-the-score-looked win over the Pittsburgh Penguins that saw the Avs not play very well, the terrible San Jose Sharks came to town ahead of a Saturday night showdown against the Toronto Maple Leafs that will feature a ton of star power.

Tonight, it was a Sharks team fighting for another top-five draft pick against the Avs, who came in trying to win their fourth straight home game on a six-game homestand. The Avs took care of business as they got a little aggression out against former goaltender Alexandar Georgiev in a 7-3 beatdown of the overmatched Sharks.

The game ended up overshadowed by the massive in-game trade by the Avalanche that brought Brock Nelson from the New York Islanders to Denver, but that’s for another piece. For now, let’s talk about this one.

Cale Makar another record-setting night for the Avalanche

Ridiculous as it is, Makar’s night ended up overshadowed by the Nelson acquisition but he recorded two goals and four assists for a comical six-point night. With Quinn Hughes struggling to stay healthy on a disappointing Vancouver Canucks roster, Makar dropped a six-piece on the Sharks on national television the night before the trade deadline. That should help in the Norris Trophy race.

Makar was flat-out dominant tonight. I know the Sharks are terrible. I know. But this is still the NHL and the Sharks have still won 17 (really? Only 17?) games so far this season. You have to take care of business, especially as we’ve seen the Avs play down to their competition a bit too much at times.

That was not the case tonight. The Avs were all over the Sharks early and it never really let up. They dominated at 5v5, they dominated on special teams, and Makar was part of all of that. Makar finished with a shorthanded assist, one power-play assist, two even–strength assists, and a goal on the power play and at even strength.

In the end, it was a six-point game for Makar, but his on-ice metrics were just as dominant.

In only 13:00 of 5v5 time, the Avs had the following advantages against the Sharks:

• Shot attempts: 22-3
• Shots on goal: 9-2
• Scoring chances: 11-2
• High-danger chances: 7-1
• Goals: 3-0

It was complete and utter dominance. Just reiterating that he had points at even strength, on the power play, and shorthanded. As a defenseman. Dude is good, y’all.

Nathan MacKinnon, also pretty good

Not to be lost in the hype of Makar’s night was Nathan MacKinnon having a five-point night of his own. He’s in a death battle with Leon Draisaitl and Nikita Kucherov for the Art Ross Trophy, so a five-point night really bolstered his efforts.

It was a stat explosion for a lot of the Avs guys but MacKinnon finished with five to put himself at 98 points on the season. Huge night for him, huge for the Avs.

I don’t really have a lot else to say about it.

Avs took advantage of a compromised Sharks roster

When I say “compromised”, I don’t mean in the sense that Sharks general manager Mike Grier built a bad NHL team. We know he did that, but it was intentional. The Sharks were plenty bad coming into today but removing Nico Sturm and Jake Walman from the roster on the day of the game while sitting Luke Kunin put San Jose in a position where they were unlikely to make a real game of it.

They didn’t.

We’ve seen the Avs get put into some tough situations the last few years, so it felt a little like karmic balancing that the Avalanche were on the receiving end of another team’s misfortune this way. I say misfortune, but the Sharks also chose to do the deals when they did knowing a game was happening, so…is it misfortune?

Semantics aside, this was not a serious San Jose roster. The Avs buried these guys, as they should have.