Cale Makar Cashes In: Avalanche Lock Up a Superstar, Inherit a Cap Crisis

After weeks of staring down Quinn Hughes in a league‑wide game of contract chicken, the Colorado Avalanche superstar signed a monster eight‑year extension worth $20.4 million AAV — sliding just under the current max of $20.8M and resetting the market exactly as expected.

Colorado beat the September 15th deadline, locking in one of the last eight‑year deals the NHL will ever see before max terms drop to seven. It’s a win for the Avalanche, a win for Makar, and a deal that will echo across the league for years. But it also detonates their cap sheet.

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What This Means

For Colorado, this is the kind of contract you celebrate even if it hurts. You don’t complain about paying your franchise cornerstone. You don’t nitpick the number. You sign the deal, shake the hand, and enjoy eight years of having the best defenceman on the planet locked in.

But the number matters — and $20.4M is a number that punches a hole straight through their future flexibility.

Once Makar’s deal kicks in, the Avalanche project to have $11.6 million in cap space next season with the cap expected to land around $113.5M, per PuckPedia. That’s not a lot of room, especially when the list of outstanding contracts is long and meaningful.

Artturi Lehkonen. Scott Wedgewood. Nicolas Roy. Brent Burns (likely retiring). Plus RFAs — including Fedor Svechkov, Zachary L’Heureux, and Fabian Lysell, all acquired in recent trades.

The Avalanche have work to do, and not much space to do it.

Trouble Brewing?

Artturi Lehkonen has been a perfect fit since arriving from Montreal. 48 points in 70 games last season. 27 goals the year before. Elite two‑way play. He’s 31 and makes $4.5M — but the market says he’s closer to $8M now.

Scott Wedgewood has been a revelation. At 34, he posted Vezina‑level numbers and somehow didn’t crack the finalist list. 31‑6‑6, a 2.02 GAA, .921 save percentage. He’s at $2.5M, and that number is about to skyrocket if he continues this level of play.

Nicolas Roy, acquired for a first and a fifth, is 29 and makes $3M. Strong third‑line centers don’t grow on trees, and Colorado paid like they know it. If he pops, his next deal becomes a problem.

The Avalanche may be forced into a painful decision: move on from Wedgewood. They have Mackenzie Blackwood. They have Ilya Nabokov coming over from the KHL, one of the most intriguing goalie prospects in the pipeline. It’s not ideal — but it’s realistic.

Roster Construction

A $20.4M player changes everything.

Colorado will gladly build around Makar for eight years, but the fallout is unavoidable. Someone important is going to feel the squeeze, and the two most obvious candidates are Devon Toews and Brock Nelson.

Nelson is the piece they will look to move first. He’s turning 35 shortly after the season starts. He makes $7.5M. He’s not part of the Makar‑Toews top pairing. If you flip his money into a Lehkonen extension, the Avalanche’s cap picture suddenly looks far more manageable.

Toews is trickier — he’s still elite, still essential, still the perfect partner for Makar. But the Avalanche are entering a world where every dollar is a decision, and every decision has consequences.

The Sakic Equation

Joe Sakic has navigated cap crunches before, but this one is different. This one is created by a superstar contract that the Avalanche would sign 100 times out of 100 — and still have to solve the aftermath.

Makar put them in a tough spot. A spot they will gladly take. A spot every team in the league would kill to be in.

But the next few months will define the Avalanche’s window. Who stays. Who goes. Who gets squeezed out by the biggest contract in NHL history.

Colorado got their superstar. Now they have to build the rest of the roster around the crater he leaves behind.

Next: Avalanche and Cale Makar Sign the Biggest Deal In NHL History