Not sure I agree with those scouts remarks, I watched the entire UMass/NE game tonight and Makar was very impressive. I am not going to say he's built like a tank, but players were going for hits on him the entire game and majority bounced right off. He's quite well built and obviously looks like he has hit the weight room due to NCAA's schedule. Now this has no impact on when he goes pro because perhaps he needs to add more strength that I cannot see at the NCAA level, but I saw a player who absolutely needs no future years in college.
He played like half of the game for UMass and was one of the main catalysts in regards to UMass rushing the puck out of the zone. What I quite liked to see is that even though he likes jumping up into the play constantly, he's able to pick which plays without going Tyson Barrie reckless. He has a very calm demeanor and knows that he will get chances if he remains patient and that really helps his team much more than trying to force plays that just are not there like Barrie. Makar is also one of the best and most purest breakout passers at the prospect level, think Brisebois quality. Sure some went for icings, but considering how accurate majority of the rest of his passes were was quite the impressive feat since he was dishing them out every other play. Besides his puck rushing ability (or it could surpass it), I would argue that his breakout pass is probably the strongest single unit of his game.
What I personally like about his game the most though is that his field of vision is always on, always scouting for potential plays to be made. Even though Northeastern is top heavy this year, won the game, and Makar got zero points, he made at least three to four prime quality plays for scoring chances. He's also absolutely fantastic on the PP, easily better than Barrie or Girard, because he's so calm under pressure and has top notch passing skills. He's such a weird player though, because he's one of those defenders who might play differently depending on what the coach needs from him. He was a dynamo at junior A, solid two-way presence for Canada, and is back as an offencive dynamo for UMass. His defencive game suffered because of it, but it might be down to the coach wanting him to constantly carry the puck, he honestly looked like the NCAA version of Karlsson out there. That might be high praise, but not sure Avs would need him to play a similar game when he gets to the pros. For that reason I recommend everyone to at least watch him once at the NCAA level because he was far away the flashiest and most impressive player at there (though Tyler Madden is no joke either).
There is still a certain level of rawness for me in his game and I am still not a huge fan of his shot. His shot isn't bad per se, the heaviness is definitely there, but I still see struggles in accuracy (which Barrie has on him). In the end though, I am very happy that he saw he wasn't ready and instead of rushing himself for the sake of ELC money and bonuses, he had a clear head and spent another year in college.
E: I don't want to start up a pointless height debate again, but he looked way bigger than his 5'11" height says. Again it could be an illusion since NE had a super weird camera angle, lighting was pretty much grey, and he's quite thick making him seem bigger than he is, but I am not going to have any complaints about him being too small for the NHL (just doesn't look it nor plays like it).