The September 16 rule change that could reshape Cale Makar's Avalanche future
Photo credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Cale Makar and the Colorado Avalanche have just under six weeks before a rule change reshapes what his next contract can look like.
The date is September 16, when the new collective bargaining agreement takes full effect.
Makar is entering the final season of the six-year, $54 million deal he signed in 2021, and he became extension-eligible on July 1.
Joe Sakic, back in the general manager chair since June, signalled those talks would happen later in the summer.
Almost all of the attention has gone to the number. Macklin Celebrini reset the market at $18.8 million on July 29, and 20 percent of the $104 million cap gives Makar a theoretical ceiling of $20.8 million.
The eighth year is the smaller problem
The September 16 conversation usually centres on term, since the maximum re-signing length drops from eight years to seven that day.
That matters, but it is not the part that will haunt whoever runs the Avalanche in 2032.
The bigger change is structure.
Signing bonuses get capped at 60 percent of total value, adjacent years cannot differ by more than 20 percent of the first year's salary, and no season can pay less than 71 percent of the highest one.
Why Colorado should want this finished early
Translation: a deal signed after September 16 at $19 million has to pay close to that figure every year, deep into his mid-30s. A flat contract with no cheap tail is close to untradeable.
Sign before the deadline and Colorado can still build a back end another club would absorb someday.
That is real insurance for a team already carrying Nathan MacKinnon money, with the cap climbing to $113.5 million in 2027-28.
Makar is not going anywhere, and this is not a leverage standoff.
It is a paperwork window, and it shuts on Nikita Kucherov and Quinn Hughes the same day.
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