Scouts buzzing over Calgary’s Cale Makar
Smooth-skating defenceman draws comparisons to Senators’ Karlsson
TSN’s ace insider Bob McKenzie has north of 1.5 million followers on the social-media machine that is Twitter.
So when he mentions you on his timeline, you find out fast.
“That was pretty special,” admitted Calgary’s Cale Makar, a bluechip blue-liner for the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Brooks Bandits and a guy who won’t be squirming in his seat for long before hearing his name called at the 2017 NHL draft.
“I had lots of family and friends and cousins going, ‘Holy cow, Bob McKenzie just mentioned you!’ It was definitely pretty cool. I think that’s when you kind of realize that you’re starting to be recognized out of the AJHL. It’s very special, but I try not to let it go to my head.”
Makar’s individual goal for this season was to solidify his status as a first-rounder, but his stock really started to soar while skating for Team Canada West at the World Junior A Challenge in Bonnyville in mid-December.
On a Sunday night, he’d piled up five points — a tournament record among defenceman — in a victory against Switzerland.
About 24 hours later, shortly after a loss to Russia, he glanced at his phone and spied a notification of McKenzie’s feature on his rocket ascent with complimentary comments from scouts suggesting the 18-year-old should be in Blainville, Que. — site of Team Canada’s world junior tryout camp — and not Bonnyville. High praise from high places. With the Bandits repeating as AJHL champs, rolling through the round-robin this week at the Western Canada Cup in Penticton, B.C., and now only one win away from advancing to the RBC Cup tournament, the talent hounds are still drooling over the right-handed rearguard.
“The first time I saw him, he was an affiliate for the midget AAA Flames,” said a reminiscing Bandits head coach Ryan Papaioannou. “It was probably five minutes into the warm-up and I said to my assistant coach, ‘Who is that guy? We need to figure out who that kid is.’ Five minutes into a warm-up, we could tell there was something there.
“It was the way he skated, but it was more so his ability with the puck and just his confidence in his little fakes and just how he carried himself. At that age, at 15 as an affiliate, he looked like a little boy on the ice with the midget AAAs, but he just looked so confident. We just said, ‘Hey, we have to figure out who this guy is.’” He’s hardly a secret anymore. Makar was selected by the Medicine Hat Tigers in the eighth round of the WHL bantam draft in 2013, but the undersized defenceman — now listed at five-foot-10 and 180 pounds — preferred the NCAA route. He has committed to join the University of MassachusettsAmherst in the fall.
If you lump together regularseason and playoff contests and four appearances so far at the Western Canada Cup, Makar has racked up 99 points — including 67 helpers — in 71 skates in his second campaign with the Bandits. He doubled up as the AJHL’s most valuable player and playoff MVP and was also named a finalist for the Canadian Junior Hockey League’s top defenceman award.
The accolades aren’t about to stop.
A hat trick of NHL.com writers completed mock drafts after the April 29 lottery with two pegging Makar as the seventh-overall pick and the other slotting him at ninth.
In TSN’s current rankings, he’s listed at No. 7.
He could be the first defenceman called to the stage June 23 and 24 at United Center in Chicago.
He’ll almost certainly be the highest draftee out of the AJHL, a distinction that currently belongs to former Camrose Kodiaks standout Joe Colborne, selected 16th overall by the Boston Bruins in 2008.
“To follow up a guy like Joe Colborne and to make history and go a little bit higher than him would be pretty cool,” Makar said of the former Flames forward, now toiling for the Colorado Avalanche. “But at the end of the day, I’m not too focused on where I end up. It’s all about what you do after the draft. No matter where you go or even if you go, it’s all about how hard you work and what you’re going to excel at after.”
A graduate of the Crowchild Blackhawks minor-hockey program, the polite puck-mover would rather talk about his team than himself and has tried his darnedest to ignore the fuss, the projections, the pre-draft rankings. It’s not always easy, though. Not when you receive a shoutout from McKenzie, a name more recognizable than many of those he covers. Or when some are suggesting you could be a second coming of the reigning Norris Trophy winner.
“This season, a lot of people were comparing me to somewhat of an Erik Karlsson,” Makar said. “Before that, I always really liked his play and never noticed that we had such similar tendencies around the puck. So I’ve been watching a lot of clips of him and also Shayne Gostisbehere of Philadelphia, because his deceptiveness is one of the key traits to my game as well.
“To be honest, being compared to such a great player in the NHL and the captain of Ottawa, it’s very humbling. I think that obviously there is a long way to get there, but to even be compared to a guy like that at this age, it’s pretty special.”
It promises to be a special summer for the rising star from Calgary.
Makar is focused first on ensuring it’s a special spring.
He tallied three goals and three assists in four round-robin triumphs at the Western Canada Cup. The Bandits will have two cracks at punching a return ticket to the RBC Cup, either by winning Saturday’s championship game or Sunday’s consolation. They lost in the RBC Cup semifinals last season.
“We were talking among some of the returning guys and we thought that it didn’t feel like as much of an achievement this year to win the league, with all due respect,” Makar said. “Because we know that we have a winning culture here in Brooks and every year we expect more and more. I think without that RBC, it would be an underachievement for the season.”
For some guys, the RBC Cup will be the biggest stage of their hockey careers and that’s no knock.
For Makar, it could be — should be — just the beginning.
“He’s always been head-andshoulders above other players in terms of his thinking and his puck skills and I think his skating has really taken off,” Papaioannou said. “So we knew he’d be special this year and we knew there would be NHL attention. I guess we maybe weren’t quite aware that it was going to be the top-rated defenceman in the draft, but it’s all a credit to him.
“And I think he’s handled it really well. There have been games this year where he’s met with three teams before warm-up, he’s met with three teams after the game, he’s met with another team the next morning before practice and it hasn’t seemed to bother him at all.”
To be honest, being compared to such a great player in the NHL and the captain of Ottawa, it’s very humbling.