The beau­ty and bru­tal­i­ty of NHL play­off hock­ey crashed like waves Mon­day for Avalanche rook­ie Cale Makar.

Nine­teen sec­onds into the third peri­od of Game 4 against the Coy­otes, Makar scooped an open puck at his blue line, reached top-speed, slipped Ari­zona defense­man Alex Goligos­ki with sil­ly stick work and back­hand­ed the puck over the right pad of goalie Antti Raanta.

Sev­er­al min­utes lat­er, with the Avs up 6–1, Nathan Mack­in­non slammed Coy­otes for­ward Chris­t­ian Fis­ch­er to the ice in a skir­mish ignit­ed by Ari­zona for­ward Law­son Crouse cross-check­ing Makar face-first into the boards.

The MVP candidate’s will­ing­ness to drop gloves for his star rook­ie speaks vol­umes about Makar’s instant rise in Col­orado. Makar’s reac­tion to MacKinnon’s defense?

“I don’t want to put any­body on my team in a point where they have to stand up for any­body else,” Makar said. “It makes me feel a lit­tle bit guilty, obvi­ous­ly, because I know I put myself in that sce­nario. But to see (team­mates) step up like that, it def­i­nite­ly means some­thing to me. I have a lot of respect for those guys and I hope they do for me as well.”

Makar had already earned the respect of Avs team­mates dat­ing back to his NHL debut last post­sea­son when the rook­ie scored in his first appear­ance. Makar has been equal­ly impres­sive in these play­offs with six points (two goals) since enter­ing the Edmon­ton bubble.

“Get­ting a taste of the post­sea­son last year was pret­ty spe­cial,” Makar said. “I thought it was going to help me a lot com­ing into this year just being able to know the guys, the sys­tem and every­thing. This (post­sea­son) is just a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent atmos­phere being in this bub­ble here. But the tem­po is very high and that’s one thing I took out of the last playoffs.

“Every­body amps up their game and you def­i­nite­ly can’t take a shift off.”

It’s no sur­prise team­mates were so quick to defend Makar’s hon­or after the Coy­otes’ cheap shot.

“It’s fun this year to how he prac­tices,” Don­skoi said. “He’s still a young guy, but he’s a pro. He works hard every day and is try­ing to get bet­ter. He’s work­ing on his skillset. … It’s just fun to . He’s a good skater with a lot of skill.

“I’m hap­py he’s play­ing for us.”

Injury report. Avalanche for­ward Andre Burakovsky – six points (three goals) through sev­en games in Edmon­ton — left the ice in the sec­ond peri­od Mon­day and did not return. Coach Jared Bed­nar could not pro­vide a com­plete health update as of Tues­day after­noon. Although he was opti­mistic Burakovsky will be avail­able to play Wednes­day for Game 5.

“(Burakovsky) blocked a shot and he got it on the leg. It both­ered him at the end of the game, so we sent him off,” Bed­nar said. “Today, he feels bet­ter. We’ll make a deci­sion on him tomor­row, but my feel­ing is that he will be good to go based on what I see from him this morn­ing already.”