Cale Makar becomes the NHL's first $20 million player

Cale Makar and the Colorado Avalanche agreed on Friday to an eight-year, $163.2 million extension that starts in 2027-28. The average annual value is $20.4 million. No NHL player has had a cap hit that high. No player has had a larger total contract. Bartlett Hockey, his agency, confirmed the terms. The deal runs through 2034-35.

Makar is 27 and a two-time Norris Trophy winner. He is in the last season of a six-year, $54 million contract signed in 2021, which carries a $9 million cap hit. The raise of $11.4 million a year therefore arrives after this campaign. Joe Sakic, the Avalanche president of hockey operations and general manager, had said through the summer that an agreement would be done before the new season.

Where the record sat yesterday

Minnesota forward Kirill Kaprizov signed an eight-year, $136 million extension last September. San Jose centre Macklin Celebrini signed a five-year, $94 million deal on 29 July with an $18.8 million AAV. Makar passes both. He sits $400,000 below the league's individual maximum. This is also the last summer clubs may hand out eight-year contracts. A new collective agreement cuts the maximum term to seven years.

Connor McDavid in Edmonton and Auston Matthews in Toronto become eligible for their next extensions next summer. Quinn Hughes in Minnesota and Zach Werenski in Columbus, the other defencemen in Makar's tier, now have a printed number to aim at.

What he has done

Since entering the league in 2019 Makar has led all defencemen in points, with 507, and in goals among that group over the same span. Last season he had 20 goals and 59 assists in 75 games. In two of the past three seasons he has reached 90 points. At his best the staff talks about 100.

The Avalanche built a Cup winner around Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen for a time, and Makar. Keeping the defenceman through his early thirties is the organisational choice Sakic described as finishing a career in Denver. The cap in 2027-28 is projected near $113.5 million. A $20.4 million hit is about 18 percent of that ceiling. That is the constraint the front office accepted.

What the number does to the market

Once one player crosses $20 million, the next negotiation starts there. Forwards will argue they should not earn less than a defenceman. Other clubs will argue they cannot pay it. Both arguments will be used by Monday. The Avalanche have used their last eight-year slot on the player they least wanted to lose. The rest of the roster will be built around that choice for the life of the deal.

Makar said he was excited and humbled to keep wearing the Avalanche sweater. The sentence that will travel is shorter. Twenty million four hundred thousand, times eight.