This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Cale Makar
Colorado Avalanche Defense
Six foot nothing and 187 pounds, 250 assists in 315 games, and the best career plus-minus rate of any defenceman in this edition bar his own partner.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | COL | 57 | 12 | 38 | 50 | +12 | 12 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 121 | 9.9 | 21:01 |
| 2020-21 | COL | 44 | 8 | 36 | 44 | +17 | 12 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 104 | 7.7 | 24:19 |
| 2021-22 | COL | 77 | 28 | 58 | 86 | +48 | 26 | 9 | 0 | 6 | 240 | 11.7 | 25:40 |
| 2022-23 | COL | 60 | 17 | 49 | 66 | +16 | 30 | 5 | 0 | 6 | 176 | 9.7 | 26:23 |
| 2023-24 | COL | 77 | 21 | 69 | 90 | +15 | 16 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 231 | 9.1 | 24:46 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 315 | 86 | 250 | 336 | +108 | 96 | 29 | 1 | 20 | 872 | 9.9 | 24:33 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
Seventy-seven games, 21 goals and 69 assists for 90 points, 7 on the power play and 1 shorthanded, 24:46 a night and plus-15. He took 54.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,337 minutes, the 83rd percentile, and his ice went 51-48 against an expectation of 59.00-49.78.
Ninety points from a defenceman is the third-highest total on a club that scored more goals than anybody in hockey, and only two forwards beat him. He is plus-108 in 315 career games — the second-best rate of anybody in this edition with two hundred and fifty games, behind the man he plays beside.
The Finesse Game
He skates better than anybody at his position and it is not an argument. The stride is long, the edges are absurd, and a forechecker who commits to him is beaten before he has finished committing.
He carries the puck out of his own zone and through the neutral zone at a speed no forechecker can match, and the exit is finished before the pressure has arrived. That single ability is worth more than the 90 points, because it means the club almost never has to ice a puck.
He walks the line and holds it, and 250 assists in 315 games is a rate no defenceman of his generation approaches. Two hundred and thirty-one shots at a median of 46 feet with 62 per cent from beyond 40 — the point shot is a genuine weapon and 21 goals is the proof, but the passing is the reason he is the best defenceman in the league.
The Physical Game
He is 6-0 and 187 and he defends with feet and stick rather than with body. Sixteen penalty minutes in 77 games at 24:46 a night is a remarkable rate and it comes from never being out of position long enough to need a penalty.
He does not clear his crease by force and he loses battles below the goal line to heavy forwards. On a pair with Devon Toews and behind a forward group that holds the puck, it has not mattered, and against the clubs that make it matter in May it sometimes has.
The Intangibles
The fourth pick in 2017 out of Calgary, a Hobey Baker at Massachusetts, a Calder, a Norris and a Stanley Cup by 23. He has never had a bad season and he has never played fewer than 21 minutes a night.
He is the argument this book keeps making, in one player: a small defenceman who dominates a heavy league because the puck does not care how much anybody weighs.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,337 minutes
- Expected goals
- 54.2%
- 84th pct
- Shot attempts
- 52.9%
- 78th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 51 for, 48 against. Expected: 59.0 and 49.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 10 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 77 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Usual linemates
2023-24 · 1337 minutes at five-on-five
- Devon Toews78%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2023-24
- The club
- COL took 52.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.2% — 1.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,337 minutes at five-on-five — 91st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Devon Toews | 55.2% | 51.2% | 53.0% |
| Nathan MacKinnon | 56.9% | 47.1% | 58.0% |
| Mikko Rantanen | 56.7% | 49.6% | 52.6% |
55.2% together, 51.2% for him apart and 53.0% for Toews apart. He was worse away from Toews, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Toews did.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
351 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 21 of them goals. His median goal came from 37 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 62% from beyond forty.