He was initially listed as day-to-day, but the Avalanche staff wanted to make sure that the fourth overall pick of the 2017 NHL Draft had enough time to fully recover and come back in the best health possible.
Makar has been skating on his own since Dec. 10, three days after he got hurt. He joined his teammates as a non-contact participant last Saturday and first donned a regular practice jersey before the Avalanche's game at the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday.
"The thing is with the timing of his injury, and took a little bit longer than we thought to get him back, but we wanted him to be back healthy and feeling confident in his shoulder and his body and making sure he can play the way he has to play to help us win," said head coach Jared Bednar. "We didn't want to rush him back, especially with the Christmas break. He probably could have played in Vegas but with the additional [three] days off after that I think it was a good decision to leave him out and make sure he is fully healthy, so he is ready to have a big second half for us."
A week before he was injured, Makar was named the league's Rookie of the Month for November after he produced 16 points (seven goals, nine assists), the most by a rookie blueliner in any month since Alexei Zhitnik registered 19 in March 1993 with the Los Angeles Kings.
"He does a lot of things for us. The obvious is he runs that first power play, and he has done a real nice job there. I feel like he was just kind of growing into that role, becoming a more dangerous shooting option himself," said Bednar. "Maybe early in the year deferring to some of the other guys on the ice, but shortly before he got hurt he was shooting the puck more, he was capitalizing on some of his opportunities and opening up some ice for other people. So real good recognition there on when to shoot when to distribute the puck.
"He is a very elusive guy, obviously his skating helps him with that, but just making real good decisions with the puck and getting us in and out of the zone and then the same thing in transition, getting us playing on the right half of the rink."