Cale Makar made NHL history last week, becoming the first player to earn $20 million annually in his blockbuster contract extension with the Colorado Avalanche.
His deal is worth $163.2 million over 8 seasons. The 27-year-old defenseman's average annual value is $20.8 million against the salary cap. While many anticipated Makar would set new standards with his new contract, the fallout from his deal with Colorado will impact the rest of the NHL.
Some teams, players and trends will end up winners because of it. Others ... not so much.
Here are some winners and losers of the Cale Makar contract.
Winner: Colorado Avalanche
Obviously.
GM Joe Sakic said recently that "you can't win without superstars." That's what you'd expect to hear from a guy who won Stanley Cups as a player on teams that featured Hall of Famers like Peter Forsberg, Ray Bourque, Rob Blake and this guy Patrick Roy in goal; but also from the guy who built a roster around Makar and center Nathan MacKinnon that produced a Stanley Cup win back in 2022.
There's an argument to be made that the Avalanche have the best players in the world at center and on defense and now have them both locked up through 2031. Every team in the league is trying to build a winner. No one has that kind of foundation on which to build.
Sakic was blessed with a star defenseman who wanted to go max term (eight years) from the start of negotiations. No "wait and see" contract. No trying to sync up the end of his deal with that of a family member on another NHL team (more on that in a moment). Cale Makar wanted to give Colorado nine whacks at the pinata while he's under contract.
We can tsk tsk the Avalanche for not leveraging that commitment into a friendlier cap hit, but the reality is that both Makar and his camp fully understood the current market and the one that Makar could create as an unrestricted free agent next summer. There was no steep discount to be had here, nor should there have been the expectation of one.
There are legit concerns about aging curves and overall health for a player that logs the kind of ice time that Makar does. Teams go into contract talks all the time with that in the back of their throats. But the inherent greatness of Makar, and this window to win with him on the blue line, outweigh those worries.
His cap hit will be recontextualized, as they all eventually are. The NHL is going to have the revenue streams from new media rights deals and at least two new teams inflating the cap during Makar's contract term. As one player agent told me: "By the time this deal is over, there will be guys in the league making $30 million per season."
Loser: Bill Guerin
First off, much respect to the Minnesota GM for facing a barrage of questions during a recent local media tour -- at the Minnesota State Fair, no less! -- about the status of his contract negotiations with Quinn Hughes. We've come to expect that kind of candor from Guerin, as both an NHL executive and U.S. national team general manager, but it's still refreshing when so many of his colleagues get camera shy during high-stakes negotiations.
Guerin told WCCO's Chad Hartman that there's "no tension" with Hughes and his agent Pat Brisson, but refused to traffic in hypotheticals. Dan Barreiro of KFAN told Guerin he "can't trade" Hughes due to how much the Wild gave the Vancouver Canucks for the defenseman; Guerin reiterated that "we don't want to lose him and our fans don't want to lose him."
Hughes has one more season left at $7.85 million before becoming an unrestricted free agent next summer, and he's eligible to sign an extension now. If he signs before Sept. 15, he can max out at an eight-year term. If he signs as a free agent next summer, the max is six years -- although the max contract he could sign (20% of a projected $113.5 million cap in 2027-28) would be higher, at $22.7 million.
It's hard to find many around the NHL that believe Hughes will sign a long-term deal with the Wild. Most expect it'll be a three-year term that walks him up to 2030 when his brother Jack Hughes of the New Jersey Devils is an unrestricted free agent. But what about the money?
As Guerin did radio hits about Hughes amid the butter sculptures and lumberjack shows at the fair, there was one common theme: That Makar's deal impacts what Hughes could make on a new contract, but not dramatically.
"Could it affect you financially? Yeah. There's the bar with Cale Makar signing that contract in Colorado, but Quinn might be after different things. He's got different things in the life that's important to him," he told Hartman.
Guerin's theory: That Hughes has already made significant money in his career, so he can afford to make different types of decisions on his next contract. His current contract, signed in 2021, is worth $47.1 million.
"It doesn't have to be that 'Makar signed for this so he's gotta sign for that.' No. He can do whatever the hell he wants because he's not going broke tomorrow," Guerin told KFAN.
Of course, Makar will have made $54 million on his current deal before starting on a $163 million contract in 2027-28.
It's possible that Guerin would have to overcompensate Hughes regardless of what Makar makes, like he did to keep Kirill Kaprizov in Minnesota. Makar's deal doesn't dramatically change the math on Hughes. It also doesn't uncomplicate what's already an extremely complicated negotiation for Guerin.
Winner: Matthew Schaefer
After just one season with the New York Islanders -- in which he was the unanimous choice for NHL rookie of the year -- Schaefer might already be in blank check territory for his next contract. The defenseman, who turns 19 this week, has that rare franchise-altering alchemy of on-ice ability and off-ice charisma that's been previously exhibited by players like Alex Ovechkin. He's that special.
And soon he'll be very, very rich.
Schaefer can sign an extension next summer as he enters the last year of his rookie contract. Islanders GM Mathieu Darche now has two contractual magnets pulling up Schaefer's salary: Makar, resetting the bar for defensemen at $20.4 million AAV; and San Jose Sharks phenom Macklin Celebrini, another transformative young player who will earn $18.8 annually over five seasons.
Loser: Columbus Blue Jackets
The current holy trinity of NHL defensemen is Makar, Hughes and Zach Werenski, the latter of whom won the Norris Trophy last season ... and then blocked a trade to the Dallas Stars after communicating that he didn't plan on signing an extension with the Blue Jackets.
Werenski, 29, has since emphasized that he wants to remain in Columbus as long as the Blue Jackets are a playoff team that's trending in the right direction.
He's eligible to sign an extension next summer, with two years remaining on a deal that carries a $9,583,334 average annual value. The ceiling for Werenski as a 2028 free agent would be an AAV of $24.6 million. Whether or not his heart's still in Columbus could be a separate issue from whether or not the Blue Jackets would commit that kind of money for any player -- let alone a defenseman that'll be in his early 30s by then.
Winner: Montreal Canadiens
Lane Hutson finished one point behind Cale Makar in scoring among defensemen last season. In 2027-28, when he's 23 years old, Hutson will count $11.55 million less against the salary cap than Makar does.
There are mitigating circumstances for Montreal's deal with Hutson, which he signed last October in the final season of his rookie contract. The defenseman was a 10.2(c) restricted free agent, leaving him with little leverage as a player ineligible for either an offer sheet or arbitration. But Montreal used that advantage to squeeze an eight-year deal with an $8.85 million annual cap hit out of Hutson.
It was praised as a bargain at the time -- many felt he'd at least hit $10 million AAV -- but given how the ground shifted after Makar's deal for scoring defensemen, it's an absolute steal.
This is going to be for Montreal like MacKinnon's second contract was for Colorado (seven years at $6.3 million annually): an epic underpayment of an elite player that allows his team to get a ton of other business done. Keep in mind the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in Year 6 of that deal.
Loser: Analytics truthers
Cale Makar has been a Norris Trophy finalist in six of his seven NHL seasons, winning it twice and finishing second in the voting twice as well. He's got a Calder Trophy and a Conn Smythe to his credit. He's considered the best defenseman of his generation, perhaps even the best player of his generation. Comparisons to Bobby Orr aren't met with a scoff but with respectful contemplation.
But there's another assessment of Makar -- in the present and for the duration of his contract -- that's worth considering: The one from analytics-driven skeptics who see Makar's deified status as more than a little bit owed to the greatness of MacKinnon.
Corey Sznajder had a nuanced look at this theory on All Three Zones, which included these numbers from Natural Stat Trick:
"Over the past three seasons, Makar has shared the ice with MacKinnon for 2,572 minutes compared to 1,434 minutes without him (all 5v5 by the way). In those minutes, the Avs own 58.1% of the shot attempts, 57.4% of the Expected Goals and 61.3% of the goals. In the minutes with Makar without MacKinnon the ice, Colorado owns only 47.3% of the shots, 48% of the Expected Goals and 52.2% of the goals. MacKinnon without Makar on the ice is at 56.6%, 55.7% and 66.8% in all three of those stats respectively," Sznajder wrote.
Those kinds of stats don't necessarily paint their on-ice partnership as symbiotic, but rather MacKinnon being the one driving the bus, while Makar stands over his shoulder like Keanu with Sandra Bullock in "Speed."
Obviously, the Avalanche don't care about any of this after giving Makar a record-breaking contract. He and MacKinnon are going to share the ice for Colorado until 2031 at a minimum. But this conjecture will continue to simmer in awards debates, player comparisons on social media and now in evaluating Makar under this mega-deal.
Winner: Player Empowerment
As I wrote back in June, the age of player empowerment is at hand for the NHL. We saw it in Brady Tkachuk leveraging a trade to his brother's team in South Florida, or in Dylan Larkin trying to force his way out of a long-term commitment to the Detroit Red Wings. But we also saw it in some of the mega-contracts that we signed in the offseason, with Makar's deal as the current apex.
Young stars like Celebrini ($18.8 million AAV) and Chicago's Connor Bedard ($15 million AAV) scored big in re-signing with their teams. Leo Carlsson shocked the NHL by signing a five-year, $18 million AAV offer sheet with the Philadelphia Flyers that the Anaheim Ducks matched.
(My favorite theory of the offseason, offered up by one NHL player agent: That Flyers ownership greenlit the Carlsson offer sheet as the ultimate long-term vengeance in the Cutter Gauthier drama with Anaheim. "They probably want to say, 'Hey, Philly's a good spot to be in. Don't [mess] with us.'")
There are always going to be players that take a "team-friendly" deal because the circumstances warrant it, like Connor McDavid earning less annually than Leon Draisaitl. But the ones breaking the bank are no longer the outliers, and they're going to keep breaking it. Some NHL teams are projecting the salary cap could rise to $150-$160 million by the 2031-32 season. Makar is just the beginning.
(Although, technically, Makar did just sign a team-friendly deal: $400,000 annually under the max, and one year before unrestricted free agency could have upped his ask to over $22 million annually.)
Loser: Short-term deals
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Makar's extension wasn't the money but the term.
One hallmark of the NHL's player empowerment trend has been contract duration. Auston Matthews was one of the first huge names to go short-term, signing a five-year deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2019 and then a four-year extension in 2023. Since then, Celebrini, Bedard, Carlsson and Nico Hischier of the New Jersey Devils have all signed five-year extensions, while defenseman Evan Bouchard went four years with the Edmonton Oilers.
But Makar's focus from the start of talks with the Avalanche was an eight-year term, an option that will not exist when the new CBA kicks in later this month.
"I think it gives us a lot of clarity in the sense of the direction we want to go in, hopefully being able to succeed in the next nine years, and have that stability in knowing that the contract is there and we have the pieces that we can build around," he said, via NHL.com.
Again, not everyone in the NHL can look around their locker room and see Nathan MacKinnon, with the proof of concept of having already won a Stanley Cup with him. Makar didn't have to take the "wait and see" deal that others in his tax bracket have with teams striving to become contenders. Makar knows what he has around him. And now, the Avalanche know they have Makar for the next decade.