The 24-year-old defenseman spent his summer physically and mentally working on getting healthy for the 2023-24 season.
It was a long off-season for the Colorado Avalanche but Cale Makar needed the time to rehabilitate and recover from nagging injuries.
The Norris Trophy winner said he has been dealing with a lower-body issue and is close to feeling ready but not quite there yet.
"Stuff like this, the more you work on it the better it's going to get. I'm hoping just with the more ice and stuff like that, that it'll just start feeling smoother and everything," he told the media after Friday's practice. "It's just been kind of a long process. Stuff never really gets worse but it hasn't really gotten much better ... but I'm confident that hopefully it'll just continue to hold up."
Makar said he would like to get a pre-season game in but that will depend on how he feels. He said he wants to be ready and be able to play a full season.
"It usually takes a couple games for you to get the timing and pace back," Makar said. "In practice it's good but it can be a little chaotic rather than more systematic in games."
The 24-year-old said he wanted to take as much time possible to rest and heal to be ready to play this year. But his rehabilitation was both physically and mentally challenging for him.
"Last year was just a mental grind. This summer, kind of the first summer I've had basically rehabbing the injury the entire time. It's definitely a mental battle because every day you wake up and there's certain things you can't do, and you're doing the same things, working towards doing other things," he told reporters. "It's a mental grind but at the same time it's a fun learning process in that hopefully I don't have to go through this again but if I do how taxing it is on your mind every single day."
Makar said he's been doing everything he can to put himself in the best spot possible in order to get ready for the season.