Who is the highest paid player on the Colorado Avalanche?

The Colorado Avalanche are up against the salary cap this offseason and will have to find an answer for getting under the cap when the season rolls around. For the most part, their money distribution is absolutely worth it. On another hand, well, you know the situations with Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin. I don’t have to go over that again.

The Avalanche will have to look at extending Mikko Rantanen sometime in the near future because his current contract runs out at the end of the 2024-25 season. Thankfully, the salary cap for next year is projected to go up.

That being said, the team has several key players locked up for a good number of years. One of those players happens to be the highest paid player on the team

Nathan MacKinnon is, of course, the highest paid player on the Colorado Avalanche

This should come as no surprise to anybody that Nathan MacKinnon owns the title of highest-paid player on the Colorado Avalanche. The guy is just incredible, being able to skate past opponents while possessing the puck with ease.

With an AAV of $12.6 million, MacKinnon owns the top spot on the team in terms of salary.

MacKinnon won the Ted Lindsay and Hart Memorial trophies for his efforts this past season. He finished the year second in points with 140, fourth in goals scored, and third in assists (Nikita Kucherov and Connor McDavid tied for first with 100 assists each, so MacKinnon technically finished second).

When it comes to the Colorado Avalanche negotiating a contract extension with Rantanen, I have a feeling that negotiations will include MacKinnon’s contract numbers as some sort of baseline. We need to keep Rantanen on this team. He is a tremendous part of the squad.

Getting back to MacKinnon, he will be in line for awards year in and year out throughout the entirety of his career. His AAV is 100 percent money well-spent.

I don't think that handing out many contracts with an AAV of $10 million-plus is good for a team. Thankfully, the Colorado Avalanche are not in the same position as the Toronto Maple Leafs, who underperform year in and year out.