Cale Makar: His Evolved Patterning since his Draft Year

Every time Cale Makar is on the ice, there's always some sort of highlight that he creates. It could be a nifty deception move to beat the first wave of forecheck pressure, a deceptive breakout, a quick transition from D zone inside the O zone, or it could be an entry play where he explodes from outside the dot lane. He does a fantastic job of always looking to create something every time he is on the ice. That's what impact defensemen are able to do best, especially with modern day offensive-minded defenders.

Makar was recently named to the 2024 NHL All-Star game, becoming the second defenseman in Colorado Avalanche history (Along with Rob Blake) to be voted to three consecutive all-star games. Makar, just 25 years old, has continued to rapidly develop in the NHL based on his heavily offensive-oriented game. What's most fascinating is how he trended coming out of his draft year, and he didn't play for a Tier 1 junior team.

Makar could've chosen to play in the WHL, but instead played his draft year with the Brooks Bandits of the AJHL, a Tier 2 junior team. He was committed to UMass at that time, but it was unsure how Makar would translate to UMass initially since he was so highly touted coming out of Tier 2 junior.

There were many translatable components within Makar's game that were already ingrained, good habits in which he was already building and layering upon in Brooks. In terms of his skating, his nifty cutbacks, ability to decelerate and accelerate instantaneously, his powerful linear crossovers, and his speed differentials on rushes for gave him all the difference. In his puck-handling, a lot of it stemmed from his deception and manipulation base that allowed him to manipulate contact. We see a lot of that now as well. It allowed him to turn defenders' feet to his leverage, allowing him to evade checks with the puck.

Makar AJHL Draft Year Highlights

We see a lot of leverage powered through by his skating and his puck-handling that Makar still has in his draft year in Brooks. The explosiveness and foundational elements still show effortlessly in comparison to his time in the NHL now as a star defenseman, as he's continued to layer upon the base that he had in his draft year. A couple notable highlights early on here: The very first highlight on the video shows him selling an inside move to get inside the dot lane, but then quickly explodes back out to create separation. He beats that opposing F1 tracking back, but with his effortless stride and powerful explosiveness, he already gains traction on offensive entry.

He then curves his route (Doesn't attack on a straight-line path) to quietly find the inside again, where he is placed with a 1v1 situation this time. Makar shoots, has his shot blocked, then quickly recovers off the catch in the slot to bury the rebound.

We see proactive offensive activation inside the zone from Makar at 0:20 here, where Makar opens a passing seam for a teammate proactively in the middle of the ice. He works down the middle, then rips it short side shelf.

0:44 is a skill that Makar has continued to layer upon in the NHL nowadays. He's incorporated more deception to allow him to find the inside quicker instead of being stuck to the perimeter, as he's used his vision and small-area awareness further to expand upon it. Instantly off the draw, he activates downhill on the edge, is forced to circle behind the net with possession, and quickly uses a mohawk pivot to wrap the puck around the net and score.

Now, he's layered upon that. What he usually does comes down to multiple options:

1. He'll look to instantly get off the wall right from the draw, in order to give him leverage inside the dots on a possession
2. He'll look to wrap the puck around the net, but uses puck positioning to gain speed on his possessions, or he'll look to make a pass out front to find a net front player

He isn't afraid to still do that by himself, but he knows that there's more efficient ways to do it now. By being able to be decisive off the draw to find the inside lane, it gives him more leverage in case he wanted to walk the line laterally, or work down the flanks to step into space.

6:29 shows a clip of Makar ripping a shot off a D-to-D pass, not the most translatable in terms of movement and shot selection in this scenario. This was probably something that would come up with Makar on video at times. Now what he'll do instead, and this is so important as a defenseman, he'll activate purposefully into weak side space off the puck.

Colorado's rotations allow for a near side forward to sometimes sneak up the wall, where D1 (Ideally in his strong side for one-timer position) would move from the near point to the middle, and then that D2 would shift and sometimes move downhill into space for a weak side pass option. This works a lot with Makar, since he's got awareness and decisiveness to find those weak side flanks. So instead of Makar staying at a standstill like the clip showed above, now he'll incorporate constant off-puck rotation in order to create chaos for opposing coverage. Now, because Makar is heavily pre-scouted in the NHL, he has to create some degree of constant rotation and movement to create dynamic in his offensive zone patterning.

Lastly is 10:53, where we see Makar activate as a right winger on line rush for. Notice how Makar continues to move out instead of in, almost glued to the wall, since that allows the defender to back up and gives him space. His teammate doesn't deliver a great pass, but Makar catches the pass without losing speed (Translatable), enters the zone with positive speed differential on the 1v1 defender. Using depth to his stride to extend, powerful linear crossovers, and playing on his toes, Makar gets around the net with purpose. He creates acceleration speed, moves around the net, and uses a quick mohawk pivot near the dot lane for deceptive purposes. Then, instantly Makar decelerates.

Notice there how Makar uses that outside edge to really dig into the ice, and he drives that foot out to decelerate from 100-0. Then, keeping that edge in position (He doesn't shift it out and change direction of his feet), he uses that foundation to step into his shot. He was able to link together the deceleration movement with edges and quickly shift towards generating the power in his wrist shot.

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