There’s little doubt that signing Cale Makar ASAP is the number one task for the Colorado Avalanche this offseason.
After all, the last thing anyone really wants is to go into the season with the NHL’s best defenseman unsigned.
That said, there’s another powerful reason why the Avalanche need to sign Makar ASAP. Specifically, Colorado needs to ink Makar before September 16.
On that date, the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the NHL and the NHLPA will go into effect. The previous CBA will be expiring, with a new one already in place, ready to kick in.
With the new CBA, numerous provisions will change. One of the provisions is contract length. As it stands at the moment of writing, the current CBA rules allow teams to sign own players to max-term, eight-year contracts.
Meanwhile, free agents can only see for a max of seven years. That’s partly the reason why the Toronto Maple Leafs had a sign-and-trade for Darren Raddysh. The sign-and-trade allowed Toronto to tack on the extra year on the contract.
Similarly, the Maple Leafs and Vegas Golden Knights pulled off a sign-and-trade last season involving Mitch Marner, allowing Vegas to tack on that extra year.
That will change under the new CBA rules. Instead of eight, teams will only be able to extend their own players for seven years, while free agents can only get a max of six years.
Now, you might think that one year won’t make a huge difference. But it will certainly impact the total value of player contracts. Instead of spreading out the total value of a contract over eight years, the new rules would make that over seven. And it’s something that could keep driving the cost of contracts up.
Makar may not sign long-term deal with Avalanche
Let’s assume for a minute that the Avalanche signed Makar ASAP. That would allow the club to sign him for eight years at whatever price point he wanted. Makar is entering the final year of his current contract at age 27. When the deal expires and the new one kicks in, he’ll be 28.
Now, let’s further assume he signs for eight years. That deal would take him to his age-36 season. That situation means that Makar would likely have one last shot at a multi-year deal, assuming he’s still playing at a high level even past 35.
But if Makar signed a short-term deal, say, something in the three to four-year range, he could opt for two to three additional contracts. So, instead of securing one major payday on an eight-year deal, Makar could secure two to three contracts within the same timeframe.
The rationale for that is the ability to make more money in the long run. That’s possible thanks to the rising salary cap. For the 2028-29 season, the cap ceiling will be a $123 million. A two-year deal will get Makar to that point. And it could also mean that the Avalanche would be able to pay him a higher AAV in two years than the team can today.
PuckPedia projects the Avalanche will have about $57 million in cap space by 2028-29. That’s a heck of a lot of room Colorado would have in order to pay Makar, essentially whatever he wants.
All told, the best thing the Avalanche could do from a cost-certainty perspective is to sign Makar today. But fans shouldn’t be surprised if a short-term deal happens, not because Makar wants to bail soon, but because all sides are aware that the rising cap could allow the Avalanche to pay Makar whatever he wants without crippling the team’s financial situation.
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