Is Cale Makar Really the Best Defenseman in Hockey?

Here's the thing about Cale Makar: he skates like the rink owes him money. Watch him carry the puck through neutral ice and you'll swear the other five guys on defense forgot how skating works. But now there's a $163.2 million question hanging over Denver — is he actually the best defenseman alive, or did the Avalanche just hand out the richest contract in NHL history because Nathan MacKinnon told them to? Let's sort the stats from the vibes.

Who is Cale Makar, really

Cale Makar plays defenseman for the Colorado Avalanche, though calling him a "defenseman" feels a bit like calling a Ferrari a "car." Technically accurate. Missing the point entirely.

Colorado drafted him 4th overall in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, then did the smart thing and let him finish his development at the University of Massachusetts before rushing him into the pros. Makar made his NHL debut in 2019, mid-season, and it didn't take long for the league to notice a defenseman who skated like a winger and thought the game two plays ahead of everyone else.

By 2021 he'd won the Norris Trophy, the award given to the NHL's best defenseman. A year later, he helped drag the Avalanche to a Stanley Cup championship in 2022. Through his career he's racked up 300-plus regular season points across roughly 400 games, averaging 50-plus assists a season in his recent campaigns. For a defenseman, those numbers aren't just good — they're the kind of numbers that make opposing coaches lose sleep.

The $163.2M contract, broken down

Let's get into the number that broke the internet (and possibly a few general managers' calculators). Makar's extension with Colorado is 8 years, $163.2 million, with an average annual value of $20.4 million. That AAV isn't just high for a defenseman — it's the highest cap hit for any player in NHL history, regardless of position, according to reports.

Eight years is a long runway. It locks Makar into Colorado through the prime of his career and well past it, betting that his knees, his edge work, and his hockey IQ age gracefully. Nine times out of ten, these mega-deals age fine for the first five years and get awkward in years six through eight. Colorado is rolling the dice that Makar is the exception.

Where this sits in NHL history

Calling this "the largest contract in NHL history" isn't hyperbole — it's the literal record. No forward, no goalie, no defenseman had ever commanded a $20.4 million AAV before Makar signed on the dotted line. For context, that's the kind of money that used to be reserved for era-defining forwards, not a guy whose primary job description is "stop the other team from scoring."

That's exactly what makes this deal a landmark. Defensemen have historically been paid less than elite forwards, even when their two-way impact is arguably bigger. Makar's contract didn't just reward him — it recalibrated the market's understanding of what a generational defenseman is worth.

What it means for the Avalanche

Joe Sakic, Colorado's GM, built this roster around the idea that you pay your stars and figure out the depth chart later. Locking up Makar next to Nathan MacKinnon gives head coach Jared Bednar two players he can build every system around for the next decade. That's the kind of long-term identity most franchises would sell a kidney for.

But it's not free lunch. Every dollar committed to Makar is a dollar that can't go to a third-line center or a shutdown defensive partner. Erik Johnson-type veteran depth pieces get harder to afford when your top two players are eating $30-40 million combined against the cap. Colorado's front office now has to be surgical — value contracts, entry-level deals, and a scouting department that doesn't miss.

Why Makar's career arc matters

Here's what separates Makar from a lot of high-priced defensemen: he's already delivered. A Norris Trophy in 2021. A Stanley Cup in 2022. Consistent positive plus/minus ratings, often +20 or better in his strongest seasons. This isn't a "pay for potential" contract — it's a "pay for production already on the resume" contract, which is a very different bet.

Compare that to plenty of big-money deals across sports history that got signed off projected growth rather than proven output. Makar's extension is closer to paying LeBron James in his prime than paying a rookie based on preseason hype. The track record is the collateral.

How the deal stacks up against the league

Put Makar's $20.4 million AAV next to the rest of the NHL's defensive corps and the gap is obvious. Most elite defensemen — even Norris-caliber ones — have historically landed contracts in the $9-11 million AAV range. Makar's deal nearly doubles that benchmark.

This is where the "is he really the best defenseman" debate gets interesting. Quinn Hughes, Roman Josi, and Adam Fox are all in the conversation for best blueliner in the league, and all of them are watching Makar's number very closely. Fair call, too — when the guy at the top of your position resets the market, everyone below him gets a raise eventually. Agents across the league reportedly started referencing Makar's deal in negotiations almost immediately.

Colorado's salary cap headache, long-term

This is the part most coverage skips, and it's the part that actually determines whether this contract was smart or just splashy. An 8-year term at $20.4 million doesn't just affect this season's cap sheet — it locks in a fixed, massive number through what should be several more competitive windows for Colorado.

The NHL salary cap grows over time, which helps soften the blow (a $20.4 million hit today is a smaller percentage of the cap in year six than it is in year one). But it's still a bet that the cap grows fast enough, and that Makar's production doesn't dip hard in his early-to-mid 30s. If either assumption breaks, Colorado could find itself cap-strapped exactly when it needs flexibility to retool around an aging core. Rule of thumb in cap-managed leagues: the bigger the number, the less room for error on everything else.

What this means for the next generation of defensemen

Contracts like this don't stay contained to one team. They become the reference point every agent pulls up on their laptop the second contract talks start. Makar's $163.2 million deal effectively told every elite young defenseman in the league: this is what generational two-way play is worth now, not what it used to be worth.

Expect the next wave of Norris-caliber defensemen hitting free agency or extension windows to point directly at Makar's AAV as their floor, not their ceiling. That's a real problem for small-market teams trying to build a contender around a young star blueliner — the cost of doing business at the top of the position just jumped by millions overnight.

The negotiation nobody saw coming

What's underreported in most of the coverage is the timeline pressure both sides were working under. Colorado wanted cost certainty before Makar's value climbed even higher on the open market — and given his Norris Trophy and Cup ring, that value was only trending upward. Makar and his camp, meanwhile, had leverage most players never get: a genuinely unique offensive skill set at a position where that skill set is rare, plus a winning résumé to back it up.

Reportedly, front offices around the league were watching this negotiation closely, aware that whatever number Colorado landed on would become the new ceiling reference for every defenseman negotiation for years. That's a lot of pressure for two sides trying to agree on a number — like negotiating the price of a house when every real estate agent in the country is standing behind you taking notes.

So, is he the best defenseman in hockey?

Here's my opinion, and I'll back it with numbers instead of vibes: Cale Makar is the best offensive defenseman in hockey today, full stop. A Norris Trophy, a Stanley Cup, 50-plus assists a season, and plus/minus numbers that regularly clear +20 — that's not a "top five" résumé, that's a "best in class" résumé.

But "best defenseman" isn't a single-lane race. If you're grading purely on shutdown defensive play — gap control, physicality, penalty killing — Makar isn't automatically your guy. Quinn Hughes and Roman Josi bring different strengths to that conversation, and a team building around pure defensive stinginess might reasonably pick someone else. Makar's game is built on transition, offense, and turning defense into offense in about 1.5 seconds flat. If your system doesn't need that, you don't need Makar's contract. But if you're building a team the way Colorado has — pace, skill, star power up front — then paying $20.4 million for the engine that makes it all move is, frankly, the correct move nine times out of ten.

According to the NHL's own historical salary data and reporting from outlets like NHL.com, no defenseman has ever commanded this kind of cap hit — which tells you the league itself is treating this contract as a genuine inflection point, not just a big number for headlines. Outlets like ESPN have covered similar market shifts before, and the pattern holds: record deals reset the market within 12-18 months, every time.

For fans wanting to dig deeper into how Colorado's roster is built around this bet, it's worth reading up on Nathan MacKinnon's role in the Avalanche's core, since these two contracts effectively determine Colorado's cap sheet for the next decade. It also pairs well with understanding how the NHL salary cap actually works before you decide whether $20.4 million a year is genius or madness.

So, is Cale Makar really the best defenseman in hockey? Nine times out of ten, the numbers say yes — and the tenth time, it's just somebody being contrarian on purpose. Either way, Colorado didn't just sign a player. They signed the guy who moved the entire market, one ridiculous end-to-end rush at a time. Fitting, really, for a guy whose whole game is about getting from one end of the ice to the other faster than everyone else can react.