Today is a Defenceman and Cale Makar’s 2025-26 Point Projection for the Colorado Avalanche

To set up our discussion, you must consider something. That fact is that the Colorado Avalanche have some of the most elite talent on the planet. Any team that can boast the likes of Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas, and Makar, can strike on any man advantage, at any time. Furthermore, Cale Makar is a big part in what makes that vaunted Colorado power play click.

If we analyze Cale Makar’s influence on the power play, his productivity throughout his career thus far, has been quite exceptional. In the past four seasons, he has played 60 or more games each year, and not been below 30 power play points.

Overall, Makar has had 428 career points in 395 games. He’s going to player nearly 25-minutes a game, he’s likely going to be over a point-per-game pace, and there’s little anyone can do anything to stop him. For example, in his last four years, his PPG is incredibly 1.14. That’s why the sky truly is the limit with him.

Analyzing It, More So, From the Top-Pairing Perspective

Another way to quantify Makar’s absolute level of sustained dominant play, is his play with longtime d-partner, Devon Toews. In 2024-25, similar to most recent seasons, filtering on partners that played 400-or-more minutes together, Makar and Toews ranked pretty high. Their expected goal percentage was 55.9%. In addition, this is a stat, where it kind of compares the level of your on-ice opposition. Not directly, but indirectly. Since Makar and Toews tend to matchup against top players, you need to consider ranking them among d-pairings that are considered their respective teams’ top pairings that had a superior xGoals% than they did. So, from the 13 pairings that ranked above Makar and Toews, based on our count, only six of those were their sides’ top pairs. In any sense, don’t expect that level of play to drop in 2025-26 for Makar and Toews.

Now for the Final Point Estimate

Wow, we checked, and Makar’s 2025-26 betting odds for points over-under is 86.5. It’s a bit spicy. But it does pay a shade less than half its bet. You’d have to be pretty sure in your prediction. In one sense, Makar could easily get 100 points if he is buzzing all season. Conversely, that is not something easy to attain. It is compounded on the Avs, as they do have some inconsistency on their power play. That is in terms of personnel, as 2023-24 they were 24.5% effective on the power play and 24.8% last year. They have managed to maintain a high rate of success, despite the turnover, in part due to the presence of the stars, MacKinnon and Makar.

Let’s get down to our prediction. Quite simply put, if Makar is playing 80 games, scoring at his recent PPG clip, he will be over. So, if everything goes according to his and the Avs plans, scoring 87 or more points will be the result. In terms of total games played and ice time, and based upon his rate of scoring not experiencing any significant shift, based somewhat on external factors, such as team 5v5 scoring and power play efficiency, essentially, he can hit the benchmark. In any case, we do like the over, but it is a tight discussion.

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