Jared Bednar just dropped a worrying update on Cale Makar
Jared Bednar just told the world that Cale Makar's return is on Makar. Not the doctors. Not the team. The player himself.
That answer landed late Friday night in Denver as the Avalanche prep for a do-or-die Game 3 in Vegas on Sunday.
- Jared Bednar
Read that again. The head coach of a team trailing 0-2 in a second-round series is handing the medical verdict to a 27-year-old defenseman with an undisclosed injury.
Since when does the player green-light himself off the injury report? That's the job of team doctors and the athletic staff, not the guy desperate to get back in the lineup.
Makar is listed as day-to-day. He has missed both losses in this Vegas series, a 2-4 home defeat Wednesday and a 1-3 home defeat Thursday.
A Norris-caliber blue line carrying real medical risk into Sunday
The numbers explain the panic. Makar put up 20 goals and 79 points in 75 regular-season games before this. He has 5 points in 9 playoff contests.
Without him, Colorado's blue line loses its engine. Devon Toews and Sam Malinski have absorbed massive minutes, but neither replicates what number 8 brings off the rush.
Bednar's framing is the part that stings. Telling reporters Makar will choose for himself shifts the weight of a season onto a player still recovering from something the team will not name (shoulder).
If the medical staff has cleared him, say so. If they have not, sit him. Letting the player carry that call publicly is the kind of message that ages badly inside a locker room.
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Colorado is the West's top seed at 55-16-11 with 121 points. None of that matters if this series ends in Vegas before the bus comes home.
Game 3 drops Sunday night at T-Mobile Arena. Bednar will have his answer by morning skate, and the entire hockey world will be watching who steps onto the ice in warmups.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 22, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Ivan Barbashev | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Jack Eichel | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Ross Colton | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brent Burns | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nazem Kadri | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nick Blankenburg | - | - | - | |
| Dylan Coghlan | - | - | - | |
| Nic Dowd | - | - | - | |
| Jack Drury | - | - | - | |
| Noah Hanifin | - | - | - | |
| Carter Hart | - | - | - | |
| Tomas Hertl | - | - | - | |
| Brett Howden | - | - | - | |
| William Karlsson | - | - | - | |
| Parker Kelly | - | - | - | |
| Keegan Kolesar | - | - | - | |
| Kaedan Korczak | - | - | - | |
| Brett Kulak | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||