This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Cale Makar
Colorado Avalanche Defense
30 goals and 92 points from the blue line, a Norris, and the best skater at his position in the world.
| 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 | COL | 80 | 30 | 62 | 92 | +28 | 14 | 12 | 2 | 4 | 246 | 12.2 | 25:43 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 395 | 116 | 312 | 428 | +136 | 110 | 41 | 3 | 24 | 1118 | 10.4 | 24:47 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
30 goals and 62 assists in 80 games for 92 points, plus-28, on 25:43 a night — the first 30-goal season by a defenceman in 16 years, and a Norris to go with it.
56.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 96th percentile. 246 shots from a median of 42 feet, so more than half of them from beyond 40: he shoots from the line because the line is where the puck-carrying ends, and enough of them go in that killers cannot ignore it.
The Finesse Game
The skating is the whole player and it is the best in the league at his position. He is not fast in a straight line so much as instantly at top speed, with edges that let him change direction without losing any of it, and forecheckers do not pin him because they cannot get close enough to.
The decision at the end of the rush is what separates him from the other elite skating defencemen. He does not carry into trouble; he carries until a lane appears and then either shoots — the release is quicker and heavier than it looks — or slides it to a man arriving late. Defensively he ends more plays with his feet than his stick, closing gaps so tightly that attackers run out of room at the blue line.
The Physical Game
6 feet and 187, which is average, and he is not a physical defenceman. He will not clear a crease by force and does not try to. What he has instead of size is the ability to remove the situation entirely — he retrieves pucks before pressure arrives because he gets there first.
He is not undersized. He is ordinary-sized and built entirely out of skating, which is a different thing and a more durable one.
The Intangibles
A Cup, a Conn Smythe and now two Norris trophies, and no character conversation at all attached to any of it.
The one real worry is availability. He has not played a full 82 in some years, and a defence organised around 1 man feels every game he misses — 80 last season was among his best. Colorado’s structure assumes he is on the ice for 26 minutes, and there is no second version of him on the roster.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,444 minutes
- Expected goals
- 56.7%
- 96th pct
- Shot attempts
- 55.7%
- 93rd 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: 50 for, 53 against. Expected: 70.5 and 53.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 3 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 156 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 86 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
2024-25 · 1444 minutes at five-on-five
- Devon Toews75%
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, 2024-25
- The club
- COL took 53.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.7% — 3.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,444 minutes at five-on-five — 97th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Devon Toews | 56.2% | 57.9% | 52.4% |
| Nathan MacKinnon | 61.3% | 46.1% | 51.8% |
| Artturi Lehkonen | 61.7% | 52.6% | 48.1% |
56.2% together, 57.9% for him apart and 52.4% for Toews apart. Toews was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Toews than for him.
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
389 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 30 of them goals. His median goal came from 41 feet. 13% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 56% from beyond forty.