Makar could be first NHL D-man to win scoring title since Bobby Orr

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Heading into Saturday night’s action, Cale Makar led the NHL in scoring — and for just how long nobody can possibly know.

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A defenceman being first in points at any time of any season is more than unusual. A defenceman scoring at 153-point pace, well, that’s basically unheard of.

Nikita Kucherov led the NHL in scoring last year with 144 points. The two years before that, Connor McDavid led with 153 and, before that, 123 points.

What Makar is doing in the early season in Colorado is almost impossible, unless you happen to dial back the hockey time machine and stop on Bobby Orr and Paul Coffey.

It has been 49 years since the singular and impeccable Orr led the NHL in scoring while playing defence for the Boston Bruins.

Orr won his first scoring title five years before that one. He scored 135 points in 1975 and 120 in 1970. He’s the only defenceman in the modern history of the NHL to win the scoring crown.

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Coffey, from those great Edmonton Oilers teams, once scored 138 points in a season and still found himself third behind Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux on the scoring list. Coffey also finished second in NHL scoring, but that year, 1984, he was 79 points behind his teammate, first-place runaway winner, Gretzky.

Makar, like Coffey and Orr, is in an offensive place all his own. When Colorado won the Stanley Cup in 2022, he led the playoffs in scoring with 29 points. He’s never had more than a 90-point season but he’s never had a start like this one, either.

The most recent defenceman to win the Hart Trophy as most valuable player was Chris Pronger. That was 24 years ago. Pronger never was a giant scorer like Orr or Coffey. Orr won three Harts in his career. No other defenceman has been selected MVP in the post-expansion era.

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In that time, 36 centres have been won the Hart, 12 wingers, and just four goaltenders. This might be the year for another defenceman. Just might be.

THIS AND THAT

Under the Department of Archaic Sporting Rules: The Maple Leafs don’t allow their assistant coaches to talk to the media. In the NFL, on almost any given day, you can talk to an offensive or defensive coordinator, a special- teams coach or just about anybody else you need. Not with the Leafs. Their power play stinks and you can’t ask Marc Savard about it. That’s his area. He has some explaining to do. But you won’t hear any of it. The Lou Lamoriello Rules of Silence remain long after the one-time Leafs GM has moved on. And the Brendan Shanahan promise of the Leafs being more accessible than ever when he arrived on the scene a decade ago, well, that’s kind of disappeared, too … Heading into Saturday night, the Leafs power play is operating at 11.1% efficiency, good enough for 29th in the NHL. The previous eight seasons, which corresponds with the careers of Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mitch Marner, the Leafs have had, cumulatively, the third best power play in hockey behind Edmonton and Tampa. That’s at 24.1% over eight seasons. That’s their average, so what gives, Marc Savard? … The Buffalo Sabres had the ‘Blutarsky’ power play heading into their game against Detroit on Saturday afternoon. Buffalo was the only NHL team without a power-play goal. Their Blutarsky number, like his grade-point average, 0.0 … Even Connor McDavid agrees, Sidney Crosby will captain Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-off tournament and almost certainly at the 2026 Olympics … So, who will captain Team USA? I’m figuring it’s between Matthew Tkachuk, Quinn Hughes and Matthews. There is no Crosby equivalent in current American hockey … Morgan Rielly is in tough to make Team Canada as a left defenceman. Ahead of him on the pecking order will be Devon Toews (who plays with Makar on the Avs), recently signed Shea Theodore (who will partner with Alex Pietrangelo) and Winnipeg’s Josh Morrissey. Rielly might get chosen as the fourth left defenceman. The tougher decisions will come on the right side where Makar and Pietrangelo are obvious and then it’s a toss up between Evan Bouchard of the Oilers, Noah Dobson of the Islanders and Brandon Montour of the Kraken. And that’s without mentioning Penguins’ Kris Letang, Aaron Ekblad of Florida and St. Louis’ big guy, Colton Parayko … Andrei Vasilevskiy used to be the best goalie in the world. Last year, he was coming back from injury and trying to find himself again. He didn’t. This year, he was supposed to be just right. That’s what the people around him say. But something is off with his play and he sure doesn’t look much like the world’s best any longer … The Leafs lost no shortage of games under Sheldon Keefe. But rarely did they lose two games in a row as badly as they did this past week — getting blasted 11-3 by Columbus and St. Louis and looking almost disinterested in the process. Among the many things new coach Craig Berube has to fix: The notion that there are easy games on the NHL schedule and coasting against the weak, which has been a Leafs tradition no matter who has been coaching, has to change.

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HEAR AND THERE

What a way to start the World Series on Friday night. A walkoff grand slam by pseudo-Canadian Freddie Freeman. Strong starting pitching. A sacrifice bunt. Stolen bases. A home run by Giancarlo Stanton and an almost home run by Shohei Ohtani. Old-time baseball was alive and well at Dodger Stadium … What wasn’t great: The home plate umpiring of Carlos Torres. Just not good enough … Also note great: manager Aaron Boone removing state Gerrit Cole after just 88 pitches. He had another inning in him … Orel Hershiser was one of the two players chosen to throw out the opening pitch Friday night. What you probably don’t know about the Dodgers great, Hershiser, is that he lived in Toronto for a short time as a teenager and he played in the York Mills Hockey League. I know that because I was also playing in the league at the time, though not in his division. I’ve seen the team pictures. Hershiser is one year younger than I am … I can understand why Blue Jays management believes it can compete in the future when you look at the bottom half of the rosters of the Yankees and Dodgers. There’s not a whole lot there. It’s at the top, with Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freeman, Aaron Judge, Juan Soto (for now and who knows how long) and Stanton where Toronto can’t compete. The Jays have Vladimir Guerrero and Bo Bichette. One of these things is not like the other … In Judge’s senior year of high school, he hit .500, caught 17 touchdown passes on the football team and averaged 18.2 points and 12 rebounds in basketball. Can you say athlete of the year? … Graterol is either a relief pitcher with the Dodgers or a medication I take daily … The World Series opened with an 8 p.m. game in the east, a 5 p.m. game on the West Coast and a morning game the next day in Japan. The television audience with Ohtani playing is going to be the largest ever … If anyone can salvage something out of DeAndre Hopkins, it’s Patrick Mahomes. But wouldn’t Mahomes have been better off with Amari Cooper? … The highest paid players by position in the NHL: Matthews, centre, $13.2 million; Nylander, right wing, $11.5 million; Artemi Panarin, left wing, $11.6 million; Erik Karlsson, defence, $11.5 million and Sergei Bobrovsky, goalie, $10 million … My picks for the 2024 CFL awards: Winnipeg’s Brady Oliveira with a double of Most Outstanding Player and Top Canadian; Saskatchewan’s Roland Milligan Jr., for defensive player of the year; Argos receiver Makai Polk for rookie of the year.

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SCENE AND HEARD

You can’t begin a sports book any better than Mike Keenan began his. “I really am a bastard. There, I said it,” wrote Keenan in his book Iron Mike … In pursuit of the Gretzky record for most goals scored, Alex Ovechkin is off to a slow start. He has scored two goals in six games, one empty-netter. He’s on a pace for a 27-goal season. He needs 39 more goals to catch Gretzky and 40 more to pass him this season … Nice start for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Canadian whiz with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He scored 28 points and came close to a triple-double in the road win over Denver. Not a great start for Jamal Murray, who was just 4-of-13 shooting in his season debut with the Nuggets, which was rather Olympic-like … Mike Sullivan will coach Team USA at the Olympics in 2026. Question is, will he still be coaching the Pittsburgh Penguins by then? … My Team Canada roster for the 4 Nations event, on paper, has Alexis Lafreniere, Wyatt Johnston, Adam Lowry, Connor Bedard, Travis Konecny, Sam Bennett, Anthony Cirelli and Tom Wilson all fighting it out for maybe three spots on the playing roster … Zach Hyman was a sure thing to make Team Canada when the Stanley Cup final ended in June. The way Hyman is playing to start the season, his hands seem lost, and you can’t put him on Team Canada … By my math, USA general manager Bill Guerin has about 18 forwards of quality — and there might be more than that — for a 4 Nations team that only has 12 spots on the ice …. How is it the Winnipeg Blue Bombers lead the CFL in attendance and the Winnipeg Jets are near the bottom of the NHL selling tickets? … The 50 finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame have been announced. Among them: Eli Manning, Marshawn Lynch, Torry Holt, Hines Ward, Antonio Gates, Cornelius Bennett, James Harrison and Luke Kuechly. All of them should get in eventually … Accountability for an athlete isn’t saying: ‘I’ll be better.’ It’s going out there and being better.

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AND ANOTHER THING

Everybody old enough remembers Blue Monday. The home run Rick Monday hit to knock the Montreal Expos out of the National League Championship Series in 1981. What not many remember: Fernando Valenzuela was the starting pitcher that day for the Dodgers, going 8.2 innings and giving up just three hits. That was Valenzuela’s rookie season. He won the Cy Young and rookie of the year awards that season. Valenzuela passed away the other day, a week shy of his 64th birthday … Aaron Rodgers used to be my favourite quarterback to watch. I thought he did things no one else could do. Now I can barely stomach watching him and the New York Jets play … Charles Barkley on Joel Embiid not playing for the Philadelphia 76ers. “He just signed for three years, $193 million. We’re not steel workers. We’re not nurses. We’re playing basketball for, at the most, four days a week.” Would hate to get Barkley started on Kawhi Leonard, whose entire career has now been reduced to day-to-day …. There are 21 Canadians on NBA rosters as this season begins. I believe that’s a record … Nobody called a hockey game better than Bob Cole. I don’t remember him ever using the term ‘zone time’ … The past 20 NBA champions had what you might call an A-superstar on their roster. In fact, there was a nine-year period recently, in which Kawhi, Steph Curry or LeBron James were on the winning teams. Which brings me to Scottie Barnes. The Raptors are banking their future on Barnes becoming one of those A-superstars. It might happen. He has a multitude of skills. But right now, Barnes is no better than the 20th best player in the NBA, and that might be a stretch. If he doesn’t become special beyond special, the Raptors will be spinning their wheels for years … Two things to like in the early Raptors season: The progress of Gradey Dick and the surprising play of rookie Jamal Shead … I have no problem with single points being scored on punts in the CFL, even if it cost the Argos a win Friday night. What I do have a problem with — and always will — is getting a single point off a missed field goal. That’s rewarding failure. Punting for a single is not … Wouldn’t it be great — or a lot of fun, anyhow — if the Argos somehow packed BMO Field for their only home playoff game next Saturday against Ottawa. The weather should be fine. Prices, as always, are reasonable … Happy birthday to Leon Draisaitl (29), Steve Rogers (75), Chuck Foreman (74), Mike Hargrove (75), Andrea Bargnani (39), Miikka Kiprusoff (48), Mike Ricci (53), Lou Williams (38), CM Punk (46) and Lonzo Ball (27) … And hey, whatever became of Timm Rosenbach?

ssimmons@postmedia.com
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