TruePowerSlave
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- Jun 27, 2015
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Cale Makar scores 30 goals in a season, first since Mike Green
- Thread starter Avs2022
- Start date
hamzarocks
Registered User
And since then Makar has not won anything
No norris in 2023, 2024 and he would not win this year if Quinn Hughes was 100% healthy/Canucks in a playoff spot
Mackinnon has been top 3 in league scoring for 3 years running and has been a top 3 player since.
Defenseman are almost never better players or more valuable players than comparable forwards.
Look at all time lists, hart/lindsay voting, smythe voting etc
Mackinnon has been the best Avs player for 3 years running now.
The only year Makar was better than Mackinnon in their time together was 2021-2022.
2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2022-2023, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 Mackinnon has been the clear cut better player
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Yes, you are the only one.
TruePowerSlave
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There are a bunch of Avs fans you know those who watch every game who think Makar is the better player. It's the neutrals who catch a game here and there that always pick MacKinnon.
Even this year what Makar is doing is more impressive, but the award talk is all MacKinnon.
hamzarocks
Registered User
The league wide players (lindsay finishes) + media/journalist (hart finishe + outside fans have Mackinnon as the better player.
No one talls about Makar as a top 3 player as for 2 years he hasnt seperated himself from Quinn Hughes for best D in the league.
Makar is an incredible player and probably the 5th or 6th best player in the NHL
He isnt better than any of the big 4 forwards. Those guys just drive teams offense way to much and are the biggest producers come playoffs for their teams with Mackinnon usually outproducing Makar besides the 2022 run which Makar was absolutely the better player versus Mackinnon
TruePowerSlave
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Makar outplayed and even outscored Mackinnon last season in the playoffs, just like he did in the 22 cup run.
I'm picking Cale for a playoff run every single time.
Mugzy97
#StandWitness
He's the best defenseman in the world right now and it's not particularly close.
Mackinnon is a top 3 forward in the world and forwards get more attention than defenseman do, so using Mack as a way to discredit Makar is kind of dumb.
hamzarocks
Registered User
Forwards get more attention than d-man because they are always better/more valuable for similar tiered players
Gretzky, Lemieux, Howe are all generally seen as better than the best D-man in Orr.
Crosby, Bobby Hull, Jagr, OV are generally seen as better than the 2nd best dman in Bourque or Lidstrom.
D-man don't impact a game as much as forwards. That is the way it has been historically.
Makar has 87 in 76 good for 93 pts, Quinn Hughes has 70 pts in 61 games good for 94 pts in 82.
Makar is not the undisputed best dman. He is neck and neck with Quinn hughes now over 2 full seasons.
No one would have Quinn Hughes ahead of Mackinnon or a comparable Kucherov or Draisaitl.
Makar is incredible but discounting Mackinnons season to prop up Makar is foolish
hamzarocks
Registered User
Mackinnon was better in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023 (though that was likely due to Makars suspension) while Makar was better in 2022 and maybe 2024.
Mackinnon is an all time great playoff player. He is ahead of Makar there still based on his excellent longevity in producing in the playoffs
even if this were true (which it isn't), it could just as well be argued that forwards are only rated higher because defensemen are systematically undervalued.
easy counterpoint by the way—from the 80s islanders dynasty, denis potvin is ranked highest above trottier and bossy. i could see a similar situation with mackinnon and makar in due course. too soon to say though.
hamzarocks
Registered User
Even if we pretend the top 100 listing on the history boards is a fully reliable source
You see 8 forwards in top 15, 2 Gs and 5D.
53% of forwards are in that boards top 15 all time vs only 33% d-man.
Now that is partially due to there being 12 forward skaters vs 6D skaters but generally forwards are viewed higher by most sources.
Your point for Potvin being most valuable piece of the 80s dynasty is a rarer examppe buy even then, his competition were two guys not top 20-25 all time. If he was going against a better end forward than the situation would be different.
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Kevin Hatcher was a very talented, offensive defenseman, not to be confused with his brother Derian who was the stay-at-home, defensive defenseman.
it's as good a list as any and better than most with many pages of very in-depth discussion that anybody can peruse and draw their own conclusions.
that mix of forwards and defensemen strikes me as properly proportionate.
another example: lidstrom is ranked far higher than yzerman (incidentally i think yzerman and sakic are decent historic comparables for mackinnon).
flyfysher
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- Mar 21, 2012
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Go take your argument up with Chris Pronger and Gretzky. I take it Pronger knows at least as much about hockey and is in a far better position than you to opine on Makar and Hughes. And Gretzky said Makar is the closest he’s seen to Orr, offensively and defensively, in terms of impacting the game.
TanguaySauce
Better Than BBQ
The mental gymnastics being deployed here to try and downplay a defenseman potentially scoring 30 goals is crazy.
Tkachuk4MVP
32 Years of Fail
What a bizarre thread this has turned into. I figured everyone could agree that Makar is a stud and 30 goals for a D man would be an incredible accomplishment.
Wow this thread quickly got pretty embarrassing.
Nikki Potnick
Registered User
- Aug 26, 2020
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He could probably hit 40 in a perfect year.
On a side note, I don't think there's another player that makes harder, more crisp passes than Makar. I'm in awe of every time of something as simple as him passing.
On a side note, I don't think there's another player that makes harder, more crisp passes than Makar. I'm in awe of every time of something as simple as him passing.
jigglysquishy
Registered User
He's currently tied with Burns with most in a season by an active player. Needs 3 to have the most since 1992-93.
It's been a season full of threads just openly slagging him and MacKinnon. No players get more shit for playing with each other than those two.
hamzarocks
Registered User
Didnt Makar miss game 7 vs SEA in 2023 due to a suspension?
He could have been the better player that series if he played G7
Think they were about the same level of contribution there, regardless of the suspension. Weird point to make anyways considering the tiny sample size lol. Also he was suspended for game 5, not game 7 lol
hamzarocks
Registered User
Well my point was people were trying to diminish Mackinnon's playoffs over his career as a whole due to his 2022 cup run being worse than 2022 Makar
Mackinnon outside of that has been as good or better (more often) than Makar in the playoffs.
Makar as incredible a playoff player but he is wont be able to use playoffs as a reason to be better than Mackinnon (him + kuch/drai/Mcd the only 3 other playere) as he is one of the 4 best playoff performers of the current era.
I have Makar as the 5th or 6th best player in the NHL over past 2 years. Him and Quinn Hughes are very similar and in those 2 spots.
Mcdavid at
2-4 is Kuch/Mack/Drai in debatable order
5-6 Makar/Hughes
7-10 Matthews/Pasta/Kaprizov/
