Neutral-Zone Crap: Can Makar score 40 this season?
Neutral-Zone Crap: Can Makar score 40 this season?
Don't laugh, the Avs defenseman is prodigious...plus two exceptional talents and a moment of silence for some nine-year-olds who had a rough weekend
You have to wonder what the Colorado Avalanche think when they look at the NHL standings these days. Going into Wednesday night’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Avs were sitting three places out of a wildcard playoff spot in the Western Conference. But the reality is that they are actually the second-best team in the Central Division based on points percentage. They’re the top-scoring team in the league, even though they sit seventh in actual goals for, and they went 7-1-0 in the eight games Nathan MacKinnon missed with a lower-body injury.
“I don’t even look at the standings at this point in the year,” said Avalanche coach Jared Bednar. “We just have to make sure we’re playing to the best of our ability on a nightly basis.”
If Bednar doesn’t look at the standings, presumably he probably doesn’t look at the scoring leaders, either. But he does look closely enough to know that defenseman Cale Makar is on some kind of tear when it comes to goals this season. The last time a defenseman scored 30 goals in a season was Mike Green in 2008-09. With nine goals in 16 games, Makar is on pace to easily eclipse that total.
But what about 40? Seriously, what about 40? It has been done only three times in NHL history, twice by Paul Coffey and once by Bobby Orr. Makar is currently on a 45-goal pace. The way he skates, the way he walks the line and the pinpoint accuracy with which he shoots the puck, if he stays healthy he could join those ranks, possibly this season. (Fun fact: Makar is also on pace for exactly 100 points. Only five guys in history have done that: Orr, Coffey, Al MacInnis, Denis Potvin and Brian Leetch. Nobody has done it in 30 years.)
“Even if he goes for a patch without scoring, he has that ability…to bang in a couple in a game,” Bednar said. “We’ve talked to him about continuing to shoot the puck and not to defer to other guys. He’s dangerous and he’s a guy who can score from a distance, which always helps.”
The biggest uncertainty for Makar is whether or not he can stay healthy. He missed 13 games in his rookie season and 12 last year. He missed two games in November with an upper-body injury and has exploded with 7-7-14 totals in the eight games since he returned. And about shooting the puck? Yeah, he’s doing that a lot more this season. With 115 shot attempts already, Makar is on pace to have 575 shot attempts this season.
With the deadline to apply for exceptional status with Hockey Canada set for Wednesday, it’s believed that, as expected, two of the top 14-year-old players in Ontario have put themselves forward to play major junior hockey next season.
TWO APPLY FOR EXCEPTIONAL STATUS
Michael Misa, a dynamic 14-year-old center who is playing with the Mississauga Senators Under-16 team this season, and Ryan Roobroeck, who turned 14 in September and plays with the London Jr. Knights Under-16 team, are both believed to have applied.
Hockey Canada has never accepted more than one exceptional player in a year, and it is very secretive about the process that goes into selecting exceptional players. Misa is a dynamic talent who finished the recent prestigious Gloria Rints Memorial International Silver Stick Tournament in Whitby, Ont., with five goals and 12 points in seven games. Interestingly, teammate William Moore, who is also 14 and playing up a year, was the tournament’s leading scorer with 6-7-13 totals in seven games. Malcolm Spence of the Senators, who is expected to challenge for the No. 1 spot in the OHL draft and may get it if neither Misa nor Moore gets exceptional status, finished with 5-6-11 totals.
Hockey Canada does put a lot of importance on the maturity of the player, both physically and mentally. Both players are mature beyond their years, but when it comes to physical maturity, there is no denying Roobroeck has the edge. “He’s going to be 6-foot-3 by the end of this season,” said Roobroeck’s coach Rob Crowther. “He was 5-foot-11-1/2 this summer and he’s 6-foot-1 right now. He has a brother who is 6-foot-6 and he’s on the same trajectory. And he already shoots the puck like an NHL player.”
MINOR HOCKEY MASSACRE
Speaking of the Silver Stick Tournament, you couldn’t help but feel for the Cumberland Jr. Grads, who played in the Under-10 division of the tournament, who fell victim to one of those arcane minor hockey rules that must be in place for a reason, but nobody can really figure out why.
The suburban Ottawa team actually plays as an ‘A’ team, but was obligated to play in the ‘AAA’ division of the tournament because it is the only competitive team from that organization at that level. In their first game, they faced the North York Rangers, the best Under-10 team in Ontario, and they lost 32-0. That is not a typo. All told, the Jr. Grads gave up 47 goals on the first day of the tournament. They scored seven goals and gave up 65 in four games over the weekend, with their best result a 7-5 loss to a team from Oshawa.
“I checked on them on the Sunday and they were all walking out of the arena with their goodie bags and they were smiling,” said team convenor Andrew McAlear. “They went into it knowing they were in tough.”
There is no ‘AAA’ hockey in the organization until the Under-13 division, so teams are overmatched when they play in the big tournaments against ‘AAA’ teams. And the problem, said Rangers coach Peter Sarno, is that it’s really hard to tell a bunch of nine-year-old kids that they have to stop scoring. “What are you going to do, tell a kid to not score when he has a breakaway or to miss an empty net on purpose?” Sarno said. “That would have been more insulting.”
Sarno, who played seven NHL games and had a long pro career in Europe and the minors, said his team is a special group. He hopes to keep the core of the team together throughout their minor hockey careers, which would make it what is known in Toronto minor hockey circles as a ‘Super Team’. Assisting Sarno is former NHLer Tomas Kaberle, whose son plays on the team. “I’ve coached U-16 and I’ve coached with Hockey Canada, so I know the ceiling is for a nine-year-old player,” Sarno said. “And we have an abundance of kids on our team who are well beyond that.”
The Rangers cruised through the tournament, going 7-0-0 and winning by an average score of 12-1.
GOALS, GOALS, GOALS!
To be filed under the ‘You don’t see that very often’ category, Tuesday night marked just the second time in NHL history that three teams scored two goals in 11 seconds or fewer on the same night. But what made it really funky was that two of those teams – the Washington Capitals and Tampa Bay Lightning – both blew three-goal leads and lost their games. (The Nashville Predators, the third team, won their game easily 6-0 over the Columbus Blue Jackets.) The Anaheim Ducks also gave up a three-goal lead but prevailed in the shootout over the Los Angeles Kings.
The Capitals game was particularly shocking, since they lost in regulation after being outshot 27-2 in the third period by the Florida Panthers. “We stopped playing,” Capitals coach Peter Laviolette told reporters after the game. “If you don’t punch back, the only thing you are going to do is get punched and we got punched for 20 minutes.” The Lightning, meanwhile, salvaged a point with a 4-3 shootout loss to the St. Louis Blues. And they were playing with a depleted lineup after Steven Stamkos left to be with his wife, who is expecting the couple’s second child. In fact, the Lightning had just five forwards in the lineup who were regulars on last year’s Stanley Cup team: Ondrej Palat, Anthony Cirelli, Alex Killorn, Ross Colton and Pat Maroon. “Playing with 11 forwards and only three centers,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper, “that was a killer.”
DRIBS AND DRABS
Want to hear something weird? Going into Wednesday night’s game against Colorado, Mitch Marner of the Toronto Maple Leafs hadn’t scored a power-play goal in 96 games. The last time he scored with the man advantage was Feb. 1, 2020 in overtime against the Ottawa Senators. He also has failed to score a playoff goal in 12 playoff games. I don’t even know what to say about that…Connor Bedard is not a lock to make Canada’s World Junior team, but it would be a shock if he were not on the final roster. All Canada’s coaching staff has to do is go back and look at the tapes of both Bedard and Shane Wright in last summer’s World Under-18 championship and see what those two young men did with the maple leaf on their chests. Granted, there is a big difference between being 15 and playing against 17-year-olds and being 16 and playing against 19-year-olds, but still. People keep looking at the scoring totals put up by Bedard and Wright this season and continue to ask what is wrong. Nothing is wrong. These two young men are going to be just fine…Patrick Roy claims the Montreal Canadiens have nothing to lose by making him the GM. That’s some sound reasoning right there…Former Maple Leaf Nazem Kadri, who is renowned for his on-ice banter, was asked what kind of chirp he might direct toward Auston Matthews after the latter shaved off his moustache. “That he looks like he’s 10 years old?” Kadri said.
This is an old article, but the Ottawa minor hockey tiering system is arcane compared to the rest of the province.
For younger groups, Ottawa only allows "A" or "AA" teams. Some tournaments recognize that the top teams in Ottawa absolutely can play at beat AAA teams from Toronto. But other Ottawa region teams cannot. The fact Ottawa has them all in the same tier just for the sake of appearances isn't helpful to them having a good time at tournaments or when playing other teams.
I coached a AA level team from the GTHL who was absolutely murdered (like 16-0) by an Ottawa "AA" team from the same loop. They were forced to play as AA despite their skill level being AAA because THAT particular tournament saw their league status as and refused to let them "move up". However, looking at rankings, they're top 10 AAA team in the Eastern half of Canada.
It's a mess when one regional org doesn't match other regional orgs and then tournaments get sticky about their placement.
If nothing else, use something like myhockeyrankings "points" system to grade teams and let them choose a division. They have the "you are the top team from your club" rule because in other instances, Ottawa teams come in named "A" or "AA" and absolutely murder clubs with a similar name from elsewhere in the province.