Through 17 games of his first NHL regular season, Avalanche defenseman is the early favorite to win the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year.
Makar, 21, leads all NHL rookies with 17 points, tied for third among all defensemen. He had five more points than the highest-scoring rookie forward, Buffalo’s Victor Olofsson, entering Sunday’s games.
“It’s obviously very humbling, but I don’t think I’m there yet,” Makar said Saturday after his two goals led the Avs to a 4-2 victory over the . “All the credit goes to the teammates. Those things don’t happen without good passes.”
Makar, the fourth overall pick of the 2017 draft, is the Avs’ first rookie defenseman to score multiple goals in a game and the first defenseman in club history to do it before his 22nd birthday. He earned the No. 1 star after Saturday’s game, in which he led Colorado with seven shots.
“Itap fun. Anytime you get some adrenaline going down until the end of it is awesome,” Makar said of Saturday’s win, which was sealed with ‘s goal with 2:06 remaining in regulation. “We were working hard all night. A few mishaps here and there, but we just tighten that up and keep rolling with it.”
Makar, the 2019 Hobey Baker Award winner as college hockey’s best player, is looking to becoming the Avs’ fourth Calder Trophy winner, following forwards Chris Drury (1999), (2012) and (2014). Drury also won the Hobey Baker Award the season before he joined the Avs.
Footnotes. Colorado swept its two-game homestand and had Sunday off. … Columbus’ Nick Foligno is looking at a suspension for his elbow that knocked the Avs’ Pierre-Edouard Bellemare out of Saturday’s game, NHL Player Safety tweeted Sunday. Bellemare, who might have a concussion, could join Mikko Rantanen, Gabe Landeskog, Colin Wilson, Nikita Zadorov and Philipp Grubauer on the injured list. … The Avs will practice Monday before departing for Winnipeg, where they’ll begin a five-game road trip Tuesday against the Jets. The trip also goes through Edmonton, Vancouver and Calgary before concluding Nov. 21 at Minnesota. … Avs forward , who assisted on Makar’s second goal Saturday, the game-winner, had two assists to match his career high. … Forward Vladislav Kamenev, a healthy scratch in Colorado’s first 11 games, is on a career-best points streak of three games.
