Avalanche Film Room: Makar’s magical moment

There were a lot of film room-worthy moments from last night’s 6-2 stomping over the Calgary Flames but the story of the night was Cale Makar in his NHL debut. There were a lot of nice plays from Makar throughout his near-15 minutes of ice time but let’s be honest here: the goal is what we’re all going to remember the most.

No need for a fluffy introduction. You already know it happened. Let’s break down how.

Surprise! The Avs lost a faceoff

The offensive zone faceoff is key here because Jared Bednar put Tyson Barrie and Cale Makar together with Makar moving to his off side on the left. The faceoff was predictably lost and the Flames cleared the zone with ease here. Makar actually makes a play along the wall to try to stop the puck but was unable to get to it. Initially, it looks like good luck for the Flames because this would have been icing had the puck not caromed on net. Philipp Grubauer calmly played the puck to Barrie and would begin a sequence that went from good luck for Calgary to them suddenly being down three goals.

Winning board battles pays off

This isn’t sexy. After Barrie retrieved the puck, the Flames forecheck was on him right away. It was effective as Barrie was unable to move the puck up or out of the zone. The Flames clearly are feeling good about this situation as they get three players deep in the Avalanche zone in the expectation of winning the board battle. When that doesn’t happen, the Flames are now woefully out of position to handle Colorado’s speed.

Watching Makar in this clip is important. He’s going to transition back from his assignment and get in front of the Avalanche net and loosely attach himself to the Calgary forward who got the deepest. As soon as Colorado wins the board battle and moves the puck up to Alexander Kerfoot, watch Makar immediately take off up the ice.

A clean breakout and a dagger

This is good and clean breakout for Colorado. They utilize their speed to perfection and their spacing is excellent. When we left the last clip, Kerfoot was just gaining possession of the puck and I had mentioned to watch Makar’s read. He saw the play and immediately jumped into the action. His ability to keep up with the explosiveness of MacKinnon is not only uncanny (and a straight up nightmare for the other 30 teams if they watch this clip) but crucial in creating the space here.

Makar dusted his guy, who had positioned himself behind the Colorado net. This forced Calgary to rotate a forward to take Makar, who was trailing the puck. When MacKinnon split out wide with Kerfoot on the left, it left a huge hole in the middle of the two defensemen. That’s where the backchecking forward needed to be marking Makar but he was too far away thanks to the speed of both MacKinnon and Makar up the ice. Despite an imperfect drop pass, Makar was able to corral the puck and beat Mike Smith five-hole for his first career goal. This was an immaculate display of what MacKinnon and Makar are going to be able to do to opposing teams for years with their incredible skating ability.

A moment to remember

I love this reverse angle of the goal because you can see it wasn’t cleanly handled the whole way. Makar fought off Mikael Backlund, one of the better defensive centers in the NHL, after taking a poor drop pass from MacKinnon. Makar’s eyes are up the whole way as he’s watching Kerfoot drive the net while still skating into the void left by Calgary’s defensemen as they cover both Kerfoot and MacKinnon. When Backlund finally converges on Makar, he simply uses his frame to shield the puck. This is the kind of puck protection that’s going to be crucial for Makar in his career because he’s not a physically imposing player in terms of his stature.

Even with his lack of developed “man strength”, Makar still had no trouble fending off Backlund and beating Smith for the goal. To think there are still several more years of physical maturity and filling out of his broad-shouldered frame is kind of silly, honestly. Makar was just several shifts into his NHL career when he dismissed one of the league’s best defensive stoppers and put him on the wrong end of a career highlight.

It’s hard to believe the best is still yet to come for Cale Makar.