Could Colorado Avalanche D Cale Makar get overlooked by NHL 24?

Colorado Avalanche star defenseman Cale Makar is a candidate to be on the cover of the NHL 24 video game, which will be announced on Monday, August 14th. Now, by all accounts, Makar is absolutely deserving of being featured on the cover of the iconic video game. Don’t mistake that.

The thing is, it feels as if Colorado teams (the Broncos in particular) always get overlooked for some odd reason. Now, this article has a chance to age poorly, but could the fact that the Colorado Avalanche got knocked out in the first round of last year’s postseason be a knock on Makar? Honestly, I would not put it past the decision-makers.

Who would the decision-makers put on the cover instead of Makar? Well, despite being one of, if not the best, defensemen in the entire NHL, it seems likely that the nod could easily go to a guy like Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers. McDavid had the best season of his career in 2022-23, playing in all 82 regular season games and putting up 64 goals and 89 assists for a huge total of 153 points on the season.

At the end of the day, you can look at being on a cover of a video game in two ways: (1). Makar could feel honored to be featured on the cover of a popular video game. (2). It would not surprise me if, if Makar gets the nod, he’ll shrug it off a little bit and say that his focus is to be a winner for his actual team, not for a video game. That kind of mindset kind of bothers me, but it definitely would show that his mindset is in the proper spot, and not in the spotlight.

If Makar is named as the cover athlete this year, he would join centers Peter Forsberg (’98) and Joe Sakic (NHL ‘04 with Dany Heatley) as Colorado Avalanche players who have graced the cover.