NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The NHL needs to commission an investigation to determine if Cale Makar is human.
My theory? He’s a hockey god, imbued with greatness directly by the hand of Bobby Orr, put on this earth to toy with muggles like the Nashville Predators.
“He might be the best player in the league right now. The way he dominates from the back end is amazing,” teammate Nathan MacKinnon said Monday, after Makar led the Avs to a 5-3 victory over Nashville and a four-game sweep in their opening-round playoff series. “This playoffs, he’s taken another step.”
In four games against the poor, pathetic pussycats from Nashvegas, Makar produced 10 points. In the entire history of the NHL, no defenseman, from Orr to Paul Coffey, has ever started the postseason on a hotter four-game tear.
When the Predators threw everything and the kitchen sink at Makar, none of it stopped him from being the most dominant player on the ice. The low-rent, low-brow fans of Nashvegas pelted the 23-year-old Avalanche star with something else in the final minutes of the third period of Game 4.
“People were throwing Skittles at me during play,” Makar said. “I’m not too sure why.”
Skittles? Was candy supposed to be an offering to this young hockey god?
“It was just like in the last minute of the game. A couple Skittles were hitting me. They don’t have Smarties in the States, I don’t think,” said Makar, a native of Calgary. “So it must have been Skittles.”
There are bad songs about beer and pick-up trucks written in Music City every day of the week that drone on longer than the Predators led in this playoff series. While being swept away in four games, Nashville was ahead on the scoreboard for a grand total of 4 minutes, 57 seconds.
“Any time you get a chance to end a team’s season, you take it and run,” said Makar, who crushed a shot from the blue line for a goal in the second period and assisted on two other Colorado scores.
Filip Forsberg staked the Preds to a brief 3-2 lead early in the third period. Then Avalanche captain Gabe Landeskog told his teammates on the bench it was time to get going and leave Nashvegas crying in its fried okra.
“Adversity is never a bad thing if you overcome it,” said Colorado coach Jared Bednar, who noted his team surrendered two goals as a direct result of slow, poor changes of personnel off the bench.
During the course of the final 16 minutes of Nashville’s season, the Avs scored three times, including the game-winner by Valeri Nichushkin, set up by a nifty piece of skating along the boards and an even niftier pass by Makar.
OK, let’s not get carried away. The Predators were nothing more than traffic cones on the long and winding road to the Stanley Cup. As Calgary coach Darryl Sutter warned way back on March 15, whatever poor souls faced the inevitable task of meeting the Avs in the first round were looking squarely at quick elimination that would prove to be “a waste of eight days.”
There are a dozen victories to go before Colorado can claim its first championship since 2001, when Makar was still wearing diapers. So far sterner tests, not to mention much higher anxiety, await this team.
But Makar has taken big first steps toward the Conn Smythe as the most valuable player on a Cup-worthy squad. He’s Bobby Makar, with more than a little Orr magic in his stick. If he doesn’t win the Norris Trophy this season as the best defenseman in the league, we should all demand a recount.
“The wins are what matters. And that’s all we care about,” said Makar, insisting he hasn’t cleared even an inch in his mind, much less space on his fireplace mantle, for a place to put an individual award.
We all hail Cale.
But this dude needs a nickname more befitting his otherworldly hockey powers.
He’s Cale McKizzy fo shizzy.
