Dude, where's Makar

Rookie defensemen puts up 3 assists in overtime win

The young Flyers defensemen has been quietly impressive so far in his rookie season but with the offseason moves to open up his spot it is safe to say more might be expected. Makar has started the year on the team's top pairing and has held his own leading the team in both even strength and power play time on ice eclipsing 21 minutes a game on average. Even with the hardest match-ups Makar has managed to lead all rookies with a +16. While Makar's 4 goals and 15 assists is 5th amongst all rookies the team is hoping he is only starting to heat up offensively. 

The Flyers lost top defensemen Kris Letang to free agency and traded Jacob Trouba over the offseason, both players put up 52 and 44 points respectively last season which is a lot of offense from the backend to lose. "Yeah I guess you could say it was calculated," GM Guertler told reporters before the season, "Look Makar made the mature decision to go back to college for his draft +2 year and from what we saw he seemed ready for a big role, when we see a Hobey Baker winning season like the one he put up it's on us to make sure we set him up for success and that was not on the 3rd pairing."

Coach Vigneault, affectionately known as AV, had this to say, "The important thing about the style of hockey we're playing here is we want to play the right way. If you don't cheat for offense it will come but if you cheat you will end up chasing in your own zone. Makar has come right in here as a top pairing guy, we haven't sheltered his minutes at all and he hasn't been a concern, that's pretty damn impressive if you ask me. Now is there room for improvement? Yeah sure with a guy like Makar there is no ceiling but for now we'd like to see some more out of him on the powerplay."

The Flyers power play started off the season hot at the top of the league and eventually settled in around 10th before recently falling to middle of the pack at 14th. Makar has been sharing the point with Giroux for most of the season and neither has met expectations with Makar putting up 6 points and Giroux only 5. AV is not worried because the talent is too good to not figure it out eventually though, "Well we've got Coots tied for the league lead with 15 points and Stone not too far behind at 12 so something is working, we look at it as a unit and right now we're getting those dirty goals in front of the net."

Makar has a whole lot of expectation on him to join a contender out of the gate, he surely has not disappointed but the team certainly would not mind seeing him rewarded with a Calder Trophy when all is said and done. Makar's competion is tough though with the LA Kings Adam Fox 1 point ahead of him and the Calgary Flames Quinn Hughes only 1 behind, not to mention all of the forwards. Tonight though Makar got the best of Fox as he put up 3 assists and a +4 to Fox going pointless with a -2, we can only hope a big offensive game like this is only a sign of things to come.