Colorado Bets Eight Years on Cale Makar at $20.4 Million

Cale Makar signed an eight-year, $163.2 million deal with the Colorado Avalanche on Aug. 28, the first NHL contract to average more than $20 million. The $20.4 million average begins in 2027-28 and runs through 2034-35, when the 27-year-old defenseman will be 36.

Joe Sakic, Colorado’s president of hockey operations and general manager, paid that price in the last stretch of time an eight-year contract was still allowed, and Makar wanted the term as much as the money.

Makar Wanted the Eight Years Colorado Could Still Give

The club signed Makar through 2034-35 with one year left on the six-year, $54 million pact he signed on July 24, 2021. He will play 2026-27 at a $9 million cap hit, then the new money starts. Sakic had said since July 1, when Makar first became eligible, that a deal would be done before the season.

A new labor agreement takes effect on Sept. 16. After that date the term drops to seven years with a player’s own club and six years with anyone else. Colorado and Makar used the 19 days they still had.

“A lot of guys are going mid-term, and we just decided we wanted to do the full eight-year term,” Sakic said at a Monday press conference. Makar, for his part, did not shop a shorter, reset-the-market path of the kind Macklin Celebrini took in San Jose.

I really wanted that eight years. 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.

Cale Makar, Avalanche defenseman, Aug. 31 press conference

He also sat with the age on the back end. “To think that how old I’m going to be at the end of this is crazy,” he said. “So, just got to take it year by year.”

The team posted the news the same Friday afternoon, with Makar in the burgundy jersey the deal keeps on him through a second decade in Denver.

COMMITTED TO CALE ✍️
 
We have signed defenseman Cale Makar to an eight-year contract extension through the 2034-35 season. pic.twitter.com/zU0NePvUSk

— Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) August 28, 2026

THE PATH TO EIGHT YEARS

1. July 24, 2021: Signs a six-year, $54 million deal that still covers 2026-27 at $9 million per.
2. July 1, 2026: Becomes eligible to extend with Colorado and Sakic says it will get done before camp.
3. Aug. 28, 2026: Signs the eight-year, $163.2 million extension, 19 days before the eight-year maximum dies.
4. Sept. 16, 2026: New CBA begins; a player re-signing with his own club can no longer take eight years.

Brian and Scott Bartlett, who represent him with their father Steve, treated the extra year as the trade for a number that sits just under the league maximum. Cost certainty for Colorado now, instead of lining Makar up beside Nathan MacKinnon’s next deal and watching the ask jump.

How Much Cale Makar Makes on the Record Deal

The $20.4 million cap hit is $400,000 under the $20.8 million individual maximum for 2026-27, which is 20 percent of a $104 million salary cap. Cash in the first five seasons of the new deal is $20.8 million each year. A full no-move clause runs through every season, so Colorado cannot park him in the minors or move him without his say.

Puckpedia’s year-by-year salary and bonuses show how the $163.2 million is built, with signing bonuses of $16.8 million in six of the eight years and $18.8 million in the last. Those bonuses total $127.6 million. Against a projected $113.5 million cap in 2027-28, the hit is 17.97 percent of the upper limit.

THE EIGHT-YEAR PAY SHEET

If the cap keeps climbing the way the league has sketched, that 17.97 percent share shrinks. Projections put the ceiling north of $120 million within two seasons and $130 million in three. The bet still has to clear the ice time at 34, 35 and 36, when the cap hit does not shrink with him.

The First $20 Million Player Is a Defenseman

Connor McDavid still sits on an eight-year, $12.5 million deal. Auston Matthews is at $13.25 million. The first player through $20 million a year is a 6-foot, 187-pound right-shot from Calgary who was the fourth pick in 2017 and has never left Colorado.

Celebrini’s five-year, $94 million extension on July 29 had been the AAV record at $18.8 million. Leo Carlsson is at $18 million after Anaheim matched a Philadelphia offer sheet. Kirill Kaprizov’s eight-year, $136 million deal ($17 million AAV) had been the largest total until Friday. Connor Bedard is at $15 million. Makar passed all of them on average, and he passed Kaprizov on total value.

Among defensemen, the previous mark was Bowen Byram’s $12.5 million AAV with Chicago, a six-year deal that also starts in 2027-28. Erik Karlsson’s $11.5 million pact, signed in San Jose in 2019, had been the cap-era high for the position for years. Makar did not nibble past those numbers. He more than doubled Byram.

THE AAV LEADERBOARD ONCE THE NEW DEALS START

Put $20.4 million next to an NBA payroll and it looks like a regular starter’s wage, which is the comparison that landed after the announcement. In hockey it is the top of the market, and it still sits $400,000 under the cap’s 20 percent lid. Relative to a defenseman who has averaged a point a game for his career, the number is high for the position and not the absolute max the rules allowed.

Hughes, Werenski and Schaefer Inherit a New Floor

Makar set a salary bar for elite defensemen that the next two summers will test. Quinn Hughes is in the last year of a six-year deal at $7.85 million in Minnesota and has been eligible to sign since July 1. Zach Werenski just won the Norris Trophy and has two seasons left on a six-year, $57.5 million contract ($9.583 million AAV). Matthew Schaefer, the 2025 No. 1 pick and Calder Trophy winner, has two years left on his entry-level deal.

THE BLUE LINE QUEUE

• Quinn Hughes: Eligible now, 27 when 2027-28 begins, and his camp has a printed number to match or beat.
• Zach Werenski: Can sign a deal that would start in 2028-29, when he will be 30, which may keep him a step under Makar.
• Matthew Schaefer: The Islanders’ rookie prize, on a path closer to Celebrini and Carlsson than to an eight-year veteran extension.
• The 2028 group: Miro Heiskanen ($8.45 million), Adam Fox ($9.5 million) and Evan Bouchard ($10.5 million) can sign new deals on July 1, 2028.

Lane Hutson is already in year one of an eight-year deal at $8.85 million in Montreal. Thomas Harley ($10.587 million) and Jackson LaCombe ($9 million) just started eight-year pacts of their own at 25. Those hits will look small if the cap really does run toward $130 million, which is why Colorado paid up on the last eight-year ticket it could print.

McDavid and Matthews become eligible to sign next summer. Either center can take the AAV crown back. Until then the highest-paid player in the league is a defenseman, and every other No. 1 on the blue line is negotiating from Makar’s sheet.

Sakic Is Paying for the Years After 30

Scoring for defensemen tends to peak around 26. Makar is 27. He will be 28 when the $20.4 million begins and 36 when it ends. The generous reading of aging work is that a defenseman at 35 still holds about half his peak value, a slower fade than a forward. The harsh reading is sitting in the tape of $10 million-plus deals for Drew Doughty and Karlsson, who were paid as Norris-level players well after they had stopped being that.

Nicklas Lidstrom won a Norris Trophy at 40. Most No. 1s do not. Recent Cup teams have also stopped giving their heaviest minutes to defensemen north of 30. Colorado is paying Makar as if he is the Lidstrom case, not the mean.

MAKAR’S CASE FOR THE TAIL YEARS

• Trophy club: Calder in 2019-20, Norris in 2021-22 and 2024-25, Conn Smythe in 2022. Only Bobby Orr and Brian Leetch have that trio.
• Point-per-game company: 507 points (136 goals, 371 assists) in 470 games, with only Orr (1.39) and Paul Coffey (1.09) as defensemen at a point per game.
• The 30-goal season: 92 points (30 goals, 62 assists) in 2024-25, the first 30-goal defenseman since Mike Green in 2008-09.
• Last season: 79 points (20 goals, 59 assists) in 75 games, 24:51 a night, and second to Werenski in Norris voting.

He has been a Norris finalist in six of his first seven seasons, a list he shares with Orr. He reached 500 points in his 467th game, behind only Orr (396), Coffey (422) and Denis Potvin (465) at the position. He has four 20-goal seasons, and the last three came in a row, the first time a defenseman had done that since Phil Housley and Al MacInnis 34 years earlier. In the playoffs he has 90 points (26 goals, 64 assists) in 90 games, and those 26 goals lead every active defenseman.

The 2026 postseason is the other exhibit. Colorado won the Presidents’ Trophy at 55-16-11 and swept Los Angeles. Makar then took an upper-body injury against Minnesota, sat the first two games of the Western Final against Vegas, and returned for Games 3 and 4 without a point. Vegas swept. Carolina beat Vegas in the Final. Makar finished that run with five points (four goals, one assist) in 11 games.

Cale plays 30 minutes a night and everybody is slotted behind him. To miss him on the ice for those two games, you’re in the conference final against a really good team, and you need your stars to be on the ice for you and you need them to play well. That definitely hurt.

Joe Sakic, Avalanche president of hockey operations, Aug. 31 press conference

His regular-season average was 24:51, eighth in the league. Sakic’s 30-minute figure is the playoff version of the same player, and it is the version Colorado just bought through 2035. Internationally he took gold with Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off in 2025 and silver at the 2026 Olympics in Milano Cortina, where he had six points in six games and made the Olympic All-Star Team.

MacKinnon, Necas and 39.2 Percent of the Cap

Martin Necas signed an eight-year, $92 million deal ($11.5 million AAV) on Oct. 30, 2025. MacKinnon is entering year four of an eight-year, $100.8 million contract at $12.6 million, signed on Sept. 20, 2022. Add Makar’s $20.4 million and the three hits total $44.5 million, which is 39.2 percent of the projected $113.5 million cap in 2027-28.

Sakic does not treat that concentration as a problem. “You can’t win without superstars,” he said. “We have a couple of generational players in (Makar) and Nathan, and when you have that, you make sure they’re being paid right where they’re supposed to be. Now for us it’s building the team around those two, but when you know their numbers, it’s a lot easier to do.”

He has nine more years of Makar, counting the $9 million season that still has to be played. MacKinnon is signed through 2030-31. Necas is signed through the same stretch as Makar’s new term. The rest of the roster will be built in the space those three leave, and a rising cap is the tool Sakic is counting on to keep that space from disappearing.

Colorado opens at home against the Los Angeles Kings on Sept. 30. Makar will still be on the $9 million hit that night, an alternate captain in a jersey he has already promised through 2035. The $20.4 million is a year away. The age at the far end is not, which is why he kept coming back to it in the hallway on Monday, a 27-year-old staring at a contract that ends when he is 36 and calling that fact a little crazy, then signing it anyway.