Makar signs an eight-year, $163.2 million deal, the NHL’s richest

Cale Makar signed an eight-year contract with the Colorado Avalanche on Friday that will pay him $163.2 million. The average annual value is $20.4 million. No National Hockey League player has had a higher total or a higher yearly figure. He is the first skater to cross $20 million a year.

The deal starts in 2027-28, after the last season of the six-year, $54 million contract he signed in July 2021. That pact carried a $9 million cap hit. The raise is $11.4 million a year. The new term runs through 2034-35, when he will be 36.

Bartlett Hockey, his agency, confirmed the numbers. Joe Sakic, the Avalanche president of hockey operations and general manager, had said since 1 July, the first day Makar was allowed to sign an extension, that the club intended to finish the work before training camp. “Today is an exciting day for the Avalanche organization and our wonderful fans,” Sakic said.

Makar, 27, was taken fourth overall in the 2017 draft out of Calgary. He spent two seasons at the University of Massachusetts, then debuted in the 2019 playoffs. He won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 2019-20, the Conn Smythe Trophy and the Stanley Cup in 2022, and the Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenceman in 2022 and 2025. He has been a Norris finalist in each of his first seven seasons, a run previously associated with Bobby Orr.

The scoring line is the reason the number jumped. In 470 regular-season games he has 136 goals, 371 assists and 507 points, a 1.08 points-per-game rate. Only Orr (1.39) and Paul Coffey (1.09) have averaged a point per game as defencemen across a career. He is already Colorado’s all-time leader among defencemen in goals, assists and points. Last season he put up 20 goals and 59 assists in 75 games, third among NHL defencemen, and finished second to Zach Werenski of Columbus in Norris voting. It was his third straight year with at least 20 goals, the first such streak by a defenceman since Phil Housley and Al MacInnis in 1992.

The cap context matters more than the sticker. The league ceiling is rising fast. NHL.com’s Dan Rosen noted projections that put the cap above $120 million in two seasons and $130 million in three. Macklin Celebrini signed a five-year, $94 million extension with San Jose on 29 July at $18.8 million a year. Kirill Kaprizov’s eight-year, $136 million deal with Minnesota, signed last September, had been the record total. Bowen Byram’s $12.5 million average with Chicago, also starting next season, was the previous high-water mark among defencemen on new paper.

The next files sit on desks in Minnesota and Columbus. Quinn Hughes, now with the Wild, is in the last year of a six-year deal at $7.85 million and has been eligible to extend since 1 July. His agent is Pat Brisson. Werenski and New York Islanders prospect Matthew Schaefer are the other names Rosen listed as direct beneficiaries of the new floor.

Colorado now has its core signed through at least 2031. That was the internal argument for paying the number now rather than waiting a year and bidding against a market that will only be richer. The cost is immediate tightness next to the cap once the $20.4 million hits the books. The offset is that the percentage of the cap that figure represents should shrink if the ceiling keeps climbing.

Makar recorded a video for the club. “I am so excited and humbled to continue to wear the Avalanche sweater and represent this incredible organization and community,” he said. He thanked the Kroenke family, Sakic, his wife and the Bartlett brothers. “Here’s to another hopefully amazing nine years.”

He also won gold with Canada at the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off and silver at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Those medals do not change the payroll math. They do explain why Denver decided that losing the bidding later would cost more than paying first.

Training camp opens next month. Makar still has one year at $9 million. The record starts the year after that. Hughes’s camp now has a printed target. That is the piece that will move other rosters before Makar plays a shift on the new deal.