NHL Star Power Index: Cale Makar showcases his elite playmaking ability, Nikita Kucherov paces Lightning

Welcome to the NHL Star Power Index: A weekly gauge of the players who are controlling substantial buzz around the league. When a player is included on this list it may not be a good thing — it means that they are capturing a large amount of the hockey world’s attention.

These players are in no particular order when it comes to the amount of buzz that they’re creating. We’ll revisit the Star Power Index every week throughout the regular season.

Cale Makar has already accomplished so much early in his career. The 25-year-old has started this season at an absurd rate, too.

Entering Friday, Makar currently leads the NHL in points (15), and one of the biggest reasons for that is that he has been an assist machine over the first two weeks. The Avalanche blue-liner has registered two goals and five assists over his last four games, including racking up two assists apiece in two of his last three contests.

Makar tallied two assists in Colorado’s 3-2 win against the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday. The Avalanche defenseman is currently on a seven-game point streak to begin the season. He has also recorded multiple points in five of those games.

At the 14:56 mark of the second period, Makar was looking to put the puck on net when his initial shot was blocked. However, the puck ricocheted right back to Makar, and he was able to fire a shot towards the net. Fortunately for the Avalanche, forward Joel Kiviranta happened to be screening Kraken goaltender Philipp Grubauer, and redirected the puck into the back of the net.

Kiviranta’s goal ended up giving the Avalanche a 2-1 lead at the time, and they ultimately won the contest 3-2.

Makar also continued to thrive on the Avalanche’s top power-play unit. Just five minutes later, the 25-year old earned another primary assist on a goal by Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon.

In just eight games, Makar has been a force on the power-play with a power-play goal and six power-play assists. In fact, the Avalanche defenseman has tallied a power-play assist in five of the team’s eight games. His six power-play points lead the NHL as he holds the honor over Ottawa Senators defenseman Jake Sanderson as well as Avalanche teammates Mikko Rantanen and MacKinnon.

Makar provides such a dynamic presence at both ends of the ice as he already has registered 12 blocked shots on the season. While it’s extremely early in the season, if Makar can keep up anywhere close to this kind of an offensive pace, another Vezina Trophy as the league’s top defenseman certainly could be in the cards.

It’s hard to find anyone across the NHL that is more locked in than Tampa Bay Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov. 

Kucherov finds himself near the top of the list when it comes to points leaders as he has racked up 13 points (eight goals and five assists) in the early going. That’s not exactly surprising considering that Kucherov registered a four-game goal streak to begin the 2024-25 calendar.

Kucherov has begun the year on a seven-game point streak, while also tallying four multi-point games during that span. The Lightning forward has also scored a goal in five of Tampa Bay’s seven games to begin the new campaign.

In Thursday’s 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild, Kucherov added another goal to his early season total. 

At the 11:31 mark of the second period, the Lightning were able to keep the puck in the offensive zone and defenseman Nick Perbix got it over to Kucherov near the slot. Kucherov slid the puck over to forward Nick Paul, who slid it back to Kucherov. The veteran proceeded to get a scorching one-timer into the net from the face-off circle to give the Lightning a 2-1 advantage.

With Thursday’s goal, Kucherov moves into a tie for the second-most points (13) in the league as he’s knotted with the likes of Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon, New York Rangers forward Artemi Panarin, and Florida Panthers forward Sam Reinhart.

Kucherov compiled the largest point total of his NHL career during the 2023-24 campaign as he put together 144 points (44 goals & 100 assists). While it’s early, the Lightning standout is on pace for 152 points in 2024-25, and could certainly win his second-career Hart Trophy as league MVP if he keeps up with his sensational performances.

Health has been a deterrent throughout Mark Stone’s tenure with the Vegas Golden Knights as he’s never logged close to a full season. However, Stone is off to quite an impressive start out of the gate in 2024-25.

Stone has tallied a goal and five assists in his last four games, and currently has the third-most points (12) across the NHL thus far. The Golden Knights captain is coming off of a spectacular three-point performance in which he racked up a goal and a pair of assists in a dominant 6-1 win against the Los Angeles Kings.

Stone recorded his second power-play goal of the young season at the 13:51 mark of the opening period.

Foward Tomas Hertl was able to dig the puck out from along the boards, and ultimately got it back to defenseman Noah Hanifin near the blue line. Hanifin ended up letting a shot go from the point that Hertl deflected on its way to the net. However, before the puck got to Kings goaltender David Rittich, Stone redirected the puck once again for the goal in a tremendous display of hand-eye coordination.

While Stone’s goal was eye-popping tally, he’s really thrived as a facilitator early on this season. 

Stone also recorded the primary assist on two other Vegas goals throughout Tuesday’s win. Ironically enough, the Golden Knights captain tallied the primary assist on Hertl’s goal to open the season after Hertl helped make Stone’s goal possible a short time later. In addition, Stone also assisted on forward Ivan Barbashev’s third-period goal that continued to put the game out of reach at a 6-1 deficit.

If Stone is able to have a clean bill of health throughout the majority of the year, it’s truly a game-changer for the Golden Knights. After all, Vegas had to fight and claw to clinch a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season, and ended up drawing the toughest first-round matchup imaginable in the Dallas Stars.

Stone makes the Golden Knights’ top six very more dangerous, and he’s showcasing that fact as he’s playing at an elite level to begin the season.

An NHL goaltender probably couldn’t dream of a better start to a new season than what Filip Gustavsson has managed to put together.

Earlier this month. Gustavsson scored a goalie goal against the St. Louis Blues, which is one of the most impressive feats that a goaltender can achieve. As tremendous as that was, Gustavsson has proved to be a brick wall of sorts in between the pipes for the Minnesota Wild.

In five starts, Gustavsson has compiled a 4-0-1 record, a 1.40 goals-against-average, and a .952 save percentage. The Wild netminder hasn’t allowed more than two goals in any of those outings, and also has yielded just one goal apiece in each of his last three contests.

Most recently, Gustavsson turned aside 24 of the 25 shots that he faced in a 5-1 win against the Florida Panthers on Tuesday. The Wild goaltender allowed a goal to Panthers forward Sam Bennett at the 11:19 mark of the second period, and was able to keep the defending Stanley Cup champions off of the scoreboard for the remainder of the contest.

Gustavsson has been the Wild’s primary goaltender as he’s started five of the team’s first seven games. The star goaltender is proving to be the hot hand for a Wild team that is tied for the second-most points (12) in the NHL to start off the season.