Cale Makar has limitless potential

Justin Cuthbert and Julian McKenzie discuss Makar's legacy potential after bagging three major awards — including the Stanley Cup — in less than a week.

Video Transcript

JUSTIN CUTHBERT: It's crazy. I don't know if I'd have McKinnon really involved, at least if I had a top three. I don't know if he'd be there, which is kind of crazy to say. But it doesn't really matter because Cale Makar was the deserving winner. And now he's got a Stanley Cup, a Norris, and a Conn Smythe.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Within like five days.

JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Just this week alone. Not bad. Not bad for the young guy.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: The only other guy I think around his age, or I think there was some stat that was saying that the only other defenseman to have won a Conn Smythe trophy before their 24th birthday is Bobby Orr. We're already talking about Cale Makar and Bobby Orr in the same sentence. And within a matter of less than a week, Cale Makar has proven he's the best defenseman in the league, is the playoff MVP, and has the Stanley Cup to his name. Dude is-- that's a really great start to a Hall of Fame career if you're a guy like Cale Makar.

And we haven't even got into the fact that he plays so well. He is literally revolutionizing the position of defenseman as we speak. If you don't have a Cale Makar or an Adam Fox on your team right now, what-- Or Victor Hedman. Yeah. What are you really doing? What are you're really doing as-- if you want to be taken seriously in the National Hockey League, that's a big lesson to take. You have to have a Victor Hedman-like guy, a Cale Makar type guy, someone like Adam Fox.

You need one of those three defensemen in their builds. If you were doing like-- I don't know. I don't know how they do it on the NHL video game series if you're creating a player if there's like a build thing. I think in like "2K", they kind of have it for "NBA 2K". But you would want to be one of those three defensemen there. And I think if you're a franchise, you have to have one of those three players.

JUSTIN CUTHBERT: And Makar is now set up to have an all time career kind of. He's already just fractionally behind Bobby Orr in terms of points per game in the postseason by a defenseman. He's got the Norris, the Conn, and the Stanley Cup. He's only three seasons fully into his NHL career. I mean, he's got a guy like Devon Toews to play with who can help him be at his best.

Defensemen are supposed to peak at like 27, 28, 29, maybe 30. He's got a lot of runway left to be even better than he is right now. We could be talking about a start of a career of one of the all time greats. And it seems silly to say that so soon. But with his talent base and the situation he's in in Colorado, I feel like that's the-- or that's the potential, and that there is no ceiling, I guess.