Colorado Avalanche Getting Ready to Watch Cale Makar Succeed

The Colorado Avalanche will benefit from defenseman Cale Makar’s return to — and projected dominance of — collegiate hockey this season.

The Colorado Avalanche — and seeming all of hockey — are getting ready to watch defensive prospect Cale Makar dominate at the collegiate hockey level.

The Avalanche selected Makar with the fourth-overall pick in 2017 after the dreadful Why Us 48-point season when they also lost the Draft Lottery. Cale was our consolation prize, and he’s turning into quite the prize indeed.

Makar had already committed to playing for the University of Massachussets, and he stuck by that commitment. He did very well in his freshman year with the Minutemen, earning 21 points (5 goals, 16 assists) in 34 games,, which was good for #5 on the entire team for scoring.

There was speculation that Cale Makar would be one and done with college like future teammate Tyson Jost. However, he committed to a second year with the Minutemen — and I, for one, was not surprised. He would be entering a bottleneck of youngsters in the NHL, especially on defense.

At college, he gets to dominate, especially since he’s been named one of the captains for the Minutemen.

Greg Carvel, coach of the Minutemen, believes Makar will take a big stride forward this sophomore season. In an interview he did with the Athletic, Carvel pointed out that Makar had a “whirlwind” 2017 summer with getting drafted and moving away to college — no time to focus on his off-ice conditioning. Carvel opines:

“You’re going to see him catapult because he has the spring and summer to work. “

Indeed, Carvel remarks that prior to last season with UMass, Makar didn’t have good practice habits — he “ran out of gas” quickly in practice. Well, we all know the Colorado Avalanche stress players must pass conditioning tests at the beginning of the season. Makar will be no different when his time comes.

Another year at UMass helps that.

Add to that the fact that last season Makar was feeling the freshman blues. He was much farther from home than he’d lived. Prior to his freshman year, he played in the Canadian AJHL, which was not far from his home in Calgary, Alberta.

Plus, Cale didn’t dominate right away like he was used to. This is a kid who recorded 75 points (24 goals, 51 assists) in 54 games his last year with the Brooks Bandits. At UMass, he wasn’t having those multi-point nights anymore.

In the same Athletic post, Makar said of his experience:

“To be honest, I think I struggled at the beginning and I might have felt the pressure a little bit. … After Christmas time, I found my groove.”

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That said, Carvel doesn’t think Makar has a lot to work on offense-wise. Indeed, by the end of his freshman season, he was having more of those multi-point nights he’d been accustomed to. However, Carvel does think Makar can use some work on his defense during his sophomore season.

Defensemen notoriously take longer to develop. And the Colorado Avalanche have sometimes struggled with properly developing their defensemen — it won’t hurt if Makar gets some of that development at college.

Now, let’s get back to what can really help Cale Makar in the intangibles. UMass is not known for being one of the biggest hockey colleges — certainly not on par with Jost’s University of North Dakota or Erik Johnson’s University of Minnesota. Makar is, in fact, the highest-ranked draft pick UMass has ever had.

UMass is in the prestigious Hockey East league where Boston College and Boston University dominate. They usually get the best prospects in Hockey East. But Makar playing for UMass Amherst is changing that dynamic.

As Carvel points out, fourth-overall Cale Makar spending two years with UMass Amherst lends credibility to the program in the college hockey world:

“What he’s doing. He’s going to leave UMass after two years and walk away with the knowledge that he helped build the foundation of a college hockey program that can rise to the level of teams in the Hockey East and perennially be a team that can play in the national tournament every year.”

That’s not something every player can even aspire to. However, Makar will be one of the, if not the, best collegiate player this upcoming season.

Cale Makar is already a step ahead of even his prospect counterparts here in Avs Nation. As of yesterday, he already had his first official team practice:

That’s Makar looking determined in the third photo.

Makar’s in the second row in this picture:

I’m not overly happy about the k-tape on his left knee, but I’m sure everything is all right.

As with the NHL, the college hockey season opens the first week of October. The Minutemen will host the Royal Military College of Canada on Saturday, October 6. From then on they’ll play one to two games every weekend through Friday, March 8. Last season the Minutemen didn’t make it past the Hockey East Quarterfinals.

Naturally, we don’t know how this season is going to play out for the UMass Minutemen. However, if the team experiences similar results to last season, Cale Makar could be available to the Colorado Avalanche as early as mid-March.

That’s what coach Carvel is expecting. That’s what GM Joe Sakic is anticipating. According to the Athletic article, Makar’s friends and family expect him to turn pro after his second season of college hockey.

In the meantime, we can watch him develop the defense and the mental toughness — not to mention the conditioning — that will help him have a successful transition to Colorado Avalanche hockey.