During the regular season, Makar was third among NHL defensemen in points with 79 (20 goals, 59 assists) in 75 games, averaged 24:51 of ice time per game and was plus-32. He was named a finalist for the Norris Trophy, awarded to the best defenseman in the NHL.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, Cale helps in so many different areas; you can\u2019t put in a new guy in the lineup and replace him, but you can make sure you\u2019re focused and prepared to play your best game,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cI don’t think that happened with our group on the back end for the first two (games), probably mostly with puck-management efficiency, moving out of the (defensive) zone, neutral zone, limiting turnovers. So, it\u2019s an area I expect we\u2019ll be better at tonight, like we talked about.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In seven NHL seasons, Makar has 507 points (136 goals, 371 assists) in 470 regular-season games and 90 points (26 goals, 64 assists) in 88 Stanley Cup Playoff games. The 27-year-old won the Norris twice (2021-22, 2024-25), the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year (2019-20) and the Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP with Colorado in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a big thing is that knowing nobody can try to be\u00a0Cale, can act or try to play like him,\u201d Kulak said. \u201cYou just have to stay focused on what makes you the player you are, and do those things and try to do the best for your team that way. It\u2019s everyone being themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a big loss, but we have a lot of good players on the team, and collectively as a group we just have to stick to our plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colorado is 1-for-5 on the power play without\u00a0Makar, who is usually the lone defenseman on its unit. Toews has taken the spot in Makar\u2019s absence and said the defensive group collectively, has to try and fill the void.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you just have to play your game,\u201d Toews said Sunday. \u201cYou\u2019re going to get a few extra minutes (and) they\u2019re going to be spread out a little bit differently. That\u2019s why we have depth back there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re confident with the guys we\u2019ve got. It\u2019s just on us to get the job done and limit their chances and go help on the offensive side as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the regular season, Makar was third among NHL defensemen in points with 79 (20 goals, 59 assists)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-662954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}