Cale Makar: Speed Differential & NZ Reload with Speed
One of the best things that Cale Makar brings to his play on the ice is how he attacks with space and how he is able to so freely maneuver with speed when attacking space. He can do this in small areas, but also really takes advantage of it when he is given a large amount of space to attack through. When Makar gets open, he is usually gone in a hurry. It doesn’t take much for him to get going and then sustain that shortly after.
With Makar, he brings massive speed differentials as a blue liner that sometimes make him more effective than Nate MacKinnon, given he is starting more behind the play than MacKinnon and has more space to attack through with speed. Over his NHL tenure thus far, his strides have also continued to get faster and more powerful, really accelerating off his edges to gain speed on the ice and stay agile on his toes as well.
That’s part of what makes Makar so exciting, since he is always on his toes and always unpredictable. He can get you moving one way and then cutback the other because of his footwork and because of his ability to slice through pressure. He can change direction so quickly, and so powerfully.
Notice here on this sequence how Brock Nelson and Nate MacKinnon switch at the offensive blue line, trying to force Dallas to stretch laterally and open them up a bit more. Wyatt Johnston, who is F1 back off the neutral ice reload, thinks that his D will have Makar covered, so we can see how he leans off the gas a bit here. I understand why Johnston does this, since instinctually his brain is telling him he has two D behind him to cover. Johnston doesn’t realize the D is off his angle, allowing Makar to skate right in and maneuver on the defenseman in tight.
It was a bit of miscommunication between Johnston and Thomas Harley on D here, where Harley turns his feet and stick toward Makar way too early, allowing Makar to maneuver the other direction and cut in through the slot on Harley. Bit of a mistimed gap judgement from Harley as well, where Makar with speed is extremely difficult to stop.
As we see, Makar manipulates Harley, gets around the pressure and cuts through the slot, and then fires on the far side of Oettinger with the puck on the ice.