Aarif Deen
Colorado Avalanche superstar Cale Makar becomes eligible to sign a contract extension on July 1, one year before his current deal expires.
Makar is entering the final season of the six-year, $54 million contract he signed in 2021, one that carries a $9 million cap hit. In the first season of that deal, he captured the Norris Trophy, Conn Smythe Trophy, and helped lead the Avalanche to a Stanley Cup.
With the salary cap climbing and the NHL’s financial landscape changing almost monthly, the question isn’t just whether Makar will become the league’s highest-paid player. It’s how high that number will go.
NHL insider Pierre LeBrun speculated Monday that Makar could become the NHL’s first $20 million player. More realistically, he projected a deal in the $17-18 million range to help the Avs save some space to remain a Cup contender.
Either way, if LeBrun is right, Makar is in line to nearly double his current salary.
The current benchmark belongs to Minnesota Wild star Kirill Kaprizov, whose new eight-year contract carries a $17 million cap hit beginning in 2026-27. When he signed that deal last summer, Kaprizov shattered the previous high-water mark, leapfrogging Leon Draisaitl by a staggering $3 million.
Before that, salary increases at the top of the market were much more gradual. Connor McDavid held the standard at $12.5 million before Nathan MacKinnon edged past him by just $100,000. Auston Matthews later raised the bar to $13.25 million, only $650,000 more than MacKinnon.
Kaprizov changed the market for superstars.
That contract makes it far more difficult for the Avalanche to convince Makar to accept anything below the top of the league. Before Kaprizov’s deal, perhaps there was a path to landing Makar around $15 million annually. That still isn’t impossible, especially if Makar prioritizes winning over maximizing every dollar.
But his camp will almost certainly push for him to become the NHL’s highest-paid player.
If that number lands anywhere below the 20% maximum allowable salary, or $20.8 million, the Avalanche could reasonably view it as a win. The challenge for Joe Sakic and Colorado’s front office is finding the sweet spot between rewarding the league’s best defenseman and preserving enough cap flexibility to keep a championship roster around him.
We’ll see how it shakes out later this summer.