Returning regular · 2025-26

Cale Makar

Colorado Avalanche · RD · R shot · age 27 at the dated snapshot.

Team: COL
Lane: RD
Age: 27

Production and deployment

How the points were built

Official NHL 2025–26 regular-season reports. A missing split stays “—”; it is never converted to zero.

Games75

Goals20

Assists59

Points79

Even strength50all even-strength points

Power play29

Short handed0

Empty net5

5v5 points / 601.795

Average TOI24:51

PP TOI4:11

PK TOI1:57

Organizational context

5 RD regulars in COL

The all-team median is 4. COL’s farm system ranks #32 in the maintained two-board consensus.

Thin lane

Questions a GM still has to answer

How much of the scoring comes at five-on-five, on special teams, or into an empty net?
Is the player creating the play, finishing it, or receiving a secondary point?
Does deployment reveal trust, scarcity, underuse, or a role the roster cannot offer?
What contract, acquisition cost, development alternative and Cup-window effect complete the argument?

Shot quality · 2025-26

Expected goals

CapOrCup's shot model (distance, angle, shot type, strength, rebounds, rushes), trained on 2023-24 and 2024-25 and tested on unseen games (AUC 0.756). Finishing is goals minus expected goals; it is noisy in one season.

Unblocked shots326

Expected goals16.55.1% per shot

Goals20

Finishing+3.5goals above expected

CapOrCup measures · 2025-26

What happens while he plays

Measured from the league's play-by-play and shift charts, not from the scoresheet. Expected goals are counted for every player on the ice, and a goal is credited to whoever was on the ice when the sequence began, including players who had changed off before it was scored.

Share of chance quality60%4.47 expected goals for and 3.01 against per 60 minutes

Drive, three seasons (ranking measure)+2.3 pts5v5 chance share against his club without him, over this season and the two before (weights 1 / 0.7 / 0.4; 1300 / 1414 / 1306 minutes) · 80% band 0.4 to 4.2 pts. This is the number the rankings order by: it predicts next season better than one season does.

Drive, this season only-1 ptsat 5-on-5, over 21.7 hours: his share minus the club's share when he is off the ice · with its 80% band: -1.4 pts, 80% band -4.2 to 1.4 pts

Setup (chances his passes produced)3.45 xG33 primary assists; 0.105 expected goals per pass on average, 0.111 per 60. A pass to a tap-in counts more than a pass to a point shot.

Drive, offence+0.25expected goals created per 60 with him on, minus the club without him

Drive, defence-0.32expected goals suppressed per 60 with him on, against the club without him; positive means fewer chances allowed

Isolated impact (RAPM), offence / defence+0.07 / -0.03expected goals per 60 at 5v5 with every teammate, opponent, score state, venue and zone start held as columns of one ridge regression; ± 0.10 / 0.10 SE over 1300 minutes

Offensive-zone starts65%of his faceoffs in either end zone; heavy offensive use lifts the numbers above

Chance share, score-and-venue adjusted (5v5)57%raw 57%; each shot weighted by the league's share in that score state and venue, so trailing at home is not mistaken for tilting the ice

Finish, shrunk (goals above expected per 100 shots)+0.2raw +0.8 on 326 shots; the data carries 45% of the weight, the league the rest (about 580 shots to weight the player one half)

Company (linemates / opponents)average / averageteammates +1.3, opponents 0.0 points of relative chance share, weighted by seconds shared

Start +/- (goals begun on his shift)1065 of them were scored after he had changed off

On the ice for127 for, 73 againstthe plus/minus view, for comparison

Giveaways that led to a goal0his own turnovers inside the sequence, over 31.1 hours on the ice

Line or pairPair 1his rank by 5-on-5 ice time within the club, most common over 46 games

PartnerDevon Toewsshared 59% of his 5-on-5 time

Matchup65% vs first lines65% of his time against the other club's first line (hard matchups)

Shutdown (drive, defence, deployment removed)-0.26offence the same way -0.22; zone starts, opponent quality and first-line share removed by a league-wide fit

Two-way (offence + defence, deployment removed)-0.48chances created minus chances allowed per 60, against his club without him; a fast-paced player can allow more and still win here

Penalty kill40%40% of his club's penalty kill · 146 shorthanded minutes

Matchup rating (Elo)1563above the league middle · results by who he faced over 21.7 hours of 5-on-5; 59% chance share against the strongest opponents he saw most (Quinn Hughes, Brock Faber, Gabriel Vilardi, Josh Morrissey, Mark Scheifele)

Finish rating (Elo)1516above the league middle · 17 goals on 321 shots worth 14.6 expected; rated against the goalies and the chances actually faced, so the same goal counts more against a strong goalie from a poor spot

In the play-by-play28.6 per 60how often the league's feed names him on the puck (the moments a caller says a name): 77th percentile of defencemen · in the play more than he drives it; the feed never records carries or passes that do not end in a goal

Power-play rating (Elo)1446above the league middle · 8.41 expected goals per 60 on the power play over 307 minutes, rated against the penalty-killers faced (league rate 8.27)

Penalty-kill rating (Elo)1653top tenth of the league · 6.77 expected goals allowed per 60 shorthanded over 146 minutes, rated against the power-play units faced

Shot-lane rating (Elo)1421bottom tenth of the league · 306 of 514 attempts got through (60%), rated against the defenders on the ice

Lane defence rating (Elo, unit)1266below the league middle · 567 of 1714 attempts faced were blocked while he was on (33%); shared with the four others on the ice

Turnover balance-1.55 per 6034 takeaways, 82 giveaways (49 in his own end) over 31.1 hours; recorded by the league's scorers, so counts differ by rink

Blocked shots and hits3.7 · 1.0 per 60115 blocks, 32 hits given, 39 taken, 11 penalties taken

Real points745 empty-net points left out · 20 goals, 33 primary and 26 secondary assists · 29 on the power play

How these measures are defined, and where they stop.

Advanced scoring · 2025-26

Goals, assists and plus/minus, weighted by what they changed

Every goal counts the win probability it added, scaled so the average goal is 1.0: a late tying goal counts several, a goal at 6-1 or into an empty net late counts little. Plus/minus also credits the players on the ice when the goal's sequence began.

Advanced goals (aG)20.2from 20 goals · 1 clutch (worth twice an average goal or more) · +16.6 above the chances they came from

Advanced primary assists (aA1)34.4from 33 primary assists

Advanced secondary assists (aA2)26.5from 26 secondary assists; kept apart, not guessed at

Advanced points81.2against 79 scoresheet points

Advanced plus/minus (a+/-)+54.6on the ice for 143 goals for and 80 against, each weighted by what it changed · 5 of the goals for began on his shift after he had changed off · +1.76 per 60

Shot map · 2025-26

Where he shoots from, and how it goes

Every unblocked shot placed by distance, angle and shot type. His rate from each spot is set against the league's rate for the same shot from the same spot, so the edge is against everyone else taking that shot, not against an average.

His office (most-used spot)0%wrist shot, 50–60 ft, 0–15° off centre: 0 goals on 30 shots; the league scores 2.2% from there (-2.2 points)

Crease (under 15 ft and inside 45°)2% of shots1 goals on 6 shots (16.7%, expected 16.0%)

Slot (under 30 ft and inside 40°)5% of shots3 goals on 16 shots (18.8%, expected 12.2%)

Circles (under 40 ft, wider)30% of shots7 goals on 95 shots (7.4%, expected 6.1%)

Point (40 ft and beyond inside 30°)53% of shots4 goals on 169 shots (2.4%, expected 3.1%)

Wall (40 ft and beyond, wide)11% of shots2 goals on 35 shots (5.7%, expected 1.6%)

Wrist shots2.5%5 of 204; expected 3.7%

Snap shots16.9%11 of 65; expected 6.9%

Slap shots0.0%0 of 39; expected 4.5%

Other spots he uses: wrist shot, 40–50 ft, 0–15° off centre — 1 of 28 (+0.6 vs league); wrist shot, 60–+ ft, 15–30° off centre — 0 of 19 (-0.7 vs league); slap shot, 50–60 ft, 0–15° off centre — 0 of 16 (-3.7 vs league); wrist shot, 50–60 ft, 15–30° off centre — 0 of 15 (-1.8 vs league).

Career arc · era-adjusted points per 82 games

Cale Makar, season by season

Each dot is one season. The amber bar is what his earlier seasons and his age predicted for that season (80% band), so a dot far above its bar is a season the numbers did not see coming. The shaded band is where most players at his position sit at each age.

Seasons on file72019-20 to 2025-26

Best season89.32024-25, age 26, 80 games

Latest season79.7expected 76.5 to 97.8

Measured labels0none that passed its test

his seasonexpected range from his earlier seasonsposition, 10th to 90th percentile by ageposition median

Position band: quantile regression (10th/50th/90th) of qualifying seasons on an age spline, weighted for players who drop out.

What the numbers found

No shipped label applies. A label is a measured finding about a run of seasons (for example, a spike that came back to the old level), and it is shown only for label types that passed their test on held-out seasons.

Projection at the draft

At the draft the model expected 144 NHL hours through his age-25 season (80% band 88 to 187). He logged 129 hours, between the 10th percentile and the median.

Every season

Season	Age	GP	Level	Expected (80%)
2019-20	21	57	69.1	9.1 to 42.9
2020-21	22	44	80.5	49.6 to 75.4
2021-22	23	77	83.7	61.9 to 84.4
2022-23	24	60	81.7	69.0 to 91.5
2023-24	25	77	88.6	70.7 to 92.3
2024-25	26	80	89.3	75.5 to 96.6
2025-26	27	75	79.7	76.5 to 97.8

Source: CapOrCup careers desk (method and league curves) · as of 2026-09-29

Comparables at the same age

Who looked like this at 24 to 27

Careers are compared as league-adjusted points per game by age, over the same ages. The comparables below are the closest lines, and what matters is the spread of what they did next, not any single name.

Comparables found8

Went on to two or more NHL seasons8 of 8

Their later peak (adjusted pts/game)0.94median across the comparables; this player's own line is below

This player so far: age 13 HCBAA 0.71 → age 14 AMBHL 0.67 → age 15 AMMHL 0.78 → age 16 AMHL 0.68 → age 17 AJHL 1.02 → age 18 AJHL 1.39 → age 19 NCAA 0.62 → age 20 NCAA 1.20 → age 21 NHL 0.88 → age 22 NHL 1.00 → age 23 NHL 1.12 → age 24 NHL 1.10 → age 25 NHL 1.17 → age 26 NHL 1.15 → age 27 NHL 1.05

All 3 columns shown

Player	Distance (lower is closer)	What he did afterwards
Erik KarlssonD · matched at ages 24, 25, 26, 27	0.22	age 28 NHL 0.85 → age 29 NHL 0.71 → age 30 NHL 0.42 → age 31 NHL 0.70 → age 32 NHL 1.23
Kris LetangD · matched at ages 24, 25, 26, 27	0.34	age 28 NHL 0.94 → age 29 NHL 0.83 → age 30 NHL 0.65 → age 31 NHL 0.86 → age 32 NHL 0.72
Tony DeAngeloD · matched at ages 24, 26, 27	0.38	age 28 NHL 0.35 → age 29 NHL 0.54 → age 30 NHL 0.46
Victor HedmanD · matched at ages 24, 25, 26, 27	0.40	age 28 NHL 0.77 → age 29 NHL 0.83 → age 30 NHL 0.83 → age 31 NHL 1.04 → age 32 NHL 0.65
Shea TheodoreD · matched at ages 24, 25, 26, 27	0.41	age 28 NHL 0.89 → age 29 NHL 0.85 → age 30 NHL 0.56
Roman JosiD · matched at ages 24, 25, 26, 27	0.41	age 28 NHL 0.68 → age 29 NHL 0.94 → age 30 NHL 0.69 → age 31 NHL 1.20 → age 32 NHL 0.88
Morgan RiellyD · matched at ages 24, 25, 26, 27	0.44	age 28 NHL 0.83 → age 29 NHL 0.63 → age 30 NHL 0.81 → age 31 NHL 0.50 → age 32 NHL 0.46
Aaron EkbladD · matched at ages 24, 25, 26, 27	0.46	age 28 NHL 0.35 → age 29 NHL 0.59 → age 30 NHL 0.36

Reading it

If most comparables became NHL regulars and their later peak sits well above this player's current line, the numbers say there is room to grow. If most did not, the numbers say the odds are against it. Either way it is what the data shows, not a name chosen to flatter.

Atlantic

Metropolitan

Central

Pacific

Cale Makar

How the points were built

5 RD regulars in COL

VGK

CHI

DAL

Questions a GM still has to answer

COL do not play today

Cale Makar is among the most talked-about (97th percentile); attention is up on the usual

$9.00M cap hit