The Daily Faceoff Show: Cale Makar leads the Norris Trophy race

Cale Makar might have had the goal of the year on Tuesday night.

With the Colorado Avalanche and Chicago Blackhawks locked at a 3-3 score in overtime, Makar pulled off an absurd spin move around Kirby Dach before deking out Marc-Andre Fleury and roofing the game-winner.

CALE MAKAR, OH MY 🤯 @Avalanche #SCtop10 pic.twitter.com/C4wHOa8FvZ

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) January 5, 2022

On Wednesday’s edition of the Daily Faceoff Show, Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna raved about how incredible Makar’s goal was…

Seravalli: “There were so many things about that goal that I was watching. The edgework, the spatial awareness. It was seeing that opportunity for Makar to cut back and notice that he would have that perfect lane to the net. And then the awareness close to Fleury to get that puck up and under the bar in such a tight space, that’s the sneaky underrated part of the goal, how close he was to Fleury’s pad before he was able to raise the puck like that.”

McKenna: “It’s just uncommon to see. You don’t see defensemen with this kind of scoring touch very often. We’re seeing more of it across the league, which is so fun to take a look at. But I think Cale Makar is really at the pointy end of the spectrum. That’s who everybody looks to. The way he plays with the puck on his blade, he can create, he does it at speed, he can do it on the rush, 5-on-5, power-play. He’s as versatile as they come.”

After that, the two of them pivoted to a January update of the race for the Norris Trophy. Both Seravalli and McKenna had Makar, who has 28 points through 24 games, as their front-runner for the league’s top defenseman.

Also getting love were former winners Adam Fox, Roman Josi and Victor Hedman, along with Aaron Ekblad of the Florida Panthers.

You can watch the full episode here…