McDavid, Makar, Zegras: NHL play of the year so far

Connor McDavid puck handling through four New York Rangers, Cale Makar leaving Chicago Blackhawks forward Kirby Dach for dead, or Trevor Zegras sending an alley oop pass to Sonny Milano. Who should be awarded NHL goal of the year through the first half?

Video Transcript

JULIAN MCKENZIE: For the first award, play of the first half. Connor McDavid surely a nominee. Trevor Zegras has at least two nominations for this category. Maybe there's someone out of left field I'm not even thinking about. Omar, who is your winner for play of the first half? You get a zone time award. I haven't thought of a creative nickname for a zone time award.

OMAR: Zonies.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Do you want a Zonie?

OMAR: The Zonies.

SAM CHANG: Oh, I like it.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: I like it. The first annual Zonies, baby. Let's do it.

OMAR: The Zonies. Yeah. I mean, yeah I mean like Connor McDavid destroying a franchise in a single move is always funny. But like for me, I can't-- that Cale Makar goal in overtime, like I can't, I can't get that out of my head. It's just so frickin' disgusting. It's just pure filth. Like poor Kirby Dach. Like we were talking about it for so long. To the poor-- people were literally like breaking down whether that Kirby Dach's stance was proper, like if he actually put himself in the proper position to defend the play, or if Cale Makar just like dusted him.

And again, it was from that moment where I think the hype of Cale Makar kind of took a whole new level. And then he started scoring more and more goals. And now we have the conversation of like, hey, he's probably going to hit 30. He's likely going to get another Norris.

So yeah, for me the Cale Maker goal against Chicago in overtime was my play of the year at the midway point.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: All right. Sam, your pick for play of the first half is--

SAM CHANG: If you saw my reaction, you'll know that Omar stole that one right from me. I did not think that someone else was going to pick that--

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Me too.

SAM CHANG: But I feel validated. If you Google Cale Makar, Kirby Dach, the first thing that comes up is, the headline is Cale Makar sends helpless opponent into oblivion on golfdigest.com.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: On golfdigest.com? What?

SAM CHANG: So I feel like if, I feel like if you can do that in Golf Digest, you deserve play of the season so far.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: So I'll say this. I did not expect that Cale Makar would be mentioned twice to this point. So Cuth, I'm really curious who you're going to pick.

OMAR: That's such a funny headline.

JUSTIN CUTHBERT: I mean, if the All-Star game counts, I kind of want to go with Trevor Zegras. But if it is just NHL stuff, I'm going to go with Connor McDavid versus the Rangers. I'll keep Trevor Zegras out of it. I think you'll probably lean that direction, Julian. But like the most quote-unquote hockey goal in the normal flow of a game, normally what we see and what differentiates Connor McDavid from everybody else, that was perfectly encapsulated in that goal versus the Rangers. So I'll go with that one.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: This is pretty nuts here. Because no one has mentioned Trevor Zegras to this point. And as I mentioned before, he has two plays that could easily be considered. So you know what? I wrote down McDavid versus the New York Rangers. I was ready to agree. We could have easily been a situation with Cale Makar--

JUSTIN CUTHBERT: You could agree.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: I could easily agree. But because you did that, and I do not want to be in a position where Trevor Zegras does not get anything, I will-- ah, man, this is tough here. I'm just going to pick the goal I was in the building for. And it's the full-on Michigan in full stride against the Montreal Canadiens, which means, in a stunning upset, the Dishigan does not get an award, unless you want to put it in some other category. I'm not really sure where else we could put it. But the Dishigan will not win a play of the first half Zonie from either of us four.

OMAR: I'm sure Tortorella would agree with that.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Oh. Well, do you want to kick off the next category, which is worse take fo-r--

JUSTIN CUTHBERT: We're no better than Jon Hamm not giving Trevor Zegras' [INAUDIBLE].

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Oh, god.