The Colorado Avalanche are doing handstands as they enter the 2025-26 postseason as the league’s hottest team throughout the season. With that being said, one of the players who is typically in contention for an NHL award is very unlikely to receive it this season, to no fault of his own.
Cale Makar is known worldwide as the best defenseman in the NHL, and ultimately, in the entire world. However, this season hasn’t gone quite as planned for the 27-year-old.
Makar has missed six games this season, and while that’s not technically a lot in the span of 79 games (so far), it might be enough for NHL award voters to go in a different direction when it comes to the Norris trophy.
He last played on March 30th, but has gone through a six-game goal-less streak. He’s also gone stretches of seven and eight games without a goal. Unfortunately, that adds up. Also unfortunate is the fact that Makar himself has demonstrated elite scoring talent, often being a cause of earning the award.
Makar is five goals short of tying the league lead for defensemen with Jacob Chychrun (25) and is 15 assists short of tying Evan Bouchard in assists.
There is a silver lining in how this has turned out for the Colorado Avalanche. While it is never good when a team’s top stars are injured, Jared Bednar has kept Makar out of the lineup to rest up for the playoffs. He could get a chance to play in one more game before the regular season comes to an end, and because of his time missed, that would be a reasonable thing to do. But the Avalanche don’t have anything more to play for. They’ve got nothing more to earn.
They won the Presidents’ trophy, which is given to the team who finishes the regular season with the most wins. They also clinched home ice in that game. Sure, dominating through the end of the regular season would be awesome, but it doesn’t matter a whole lot right now.
I expect Nolan Pratt and Dave Hakstol, who are taking over for Jared Bednar for two games due to the head coach getting hit by a puck, to manage player ice time for these next two road games. Unfortunately, no team could really put five or more replacements on the ice, given the salary cap (though I suppose technically it might be possible).
Regulars are going to have to play a high amount of minutes, so there will be risk of injury. However, when it comes to Makar, I would think he will maybe play one last game before the playoffs. My guess is that it would be the final game of the regular season, which is on Thursday against the Seattle Kraken.