video posted on social media<\/a> by the team, calling it a historic day. \u201cHere\u2019s to another hopefully amazing nine years.\u201d<\/p>\nMakar, 27, is coming off a season in which he had 20 goals and 59 assists. He finished second to Zach Werenski of the Columbus Blue Jackets in the Norris Trophy voting, an award that goes to the league\u2019s top defenseman. Makar has won the award twice in his career.<\/p>\n
The cap hit for Makar for last season was $9 million after signing a six-year, $54 million contract in 2021. The new deal sets the bar for fellow standout defensemen Quinn Hughes of the Wild and Werenski.<\/p>\n
Securing the long-term services of Makar was a priority this offseason for president of hockey operations\/general manager Joe Sakic, who maintained that Makar was \u201cgoing to finish his career\u201d in Colorado. The Avs selected Makar at No. 4 in 2017 out of the University of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
Makar was banged up heading into a Western Conference Final in which the Presidents\u2019 Trophy-winning Avalanche were swept by the Vegas Golden Knights. An upper-body injury sidelined him for Games 1 and 2, but he returned for the final two contests. Sakic recently said Makar is slated to be ready for training camp.<\/p>\n
It has been a busy offseason for Sakic, who\u2019s stepping back into the GM role after Chris MacFarland left to lead the front office with the Nashville Predators. Among the deals Sakic orchestrated was sending Valeri Nichushkin to the Blue Jackets for draft picks. It was a way to free up space to negotiate the Makar extension.<\/p>\n
A native of Calgary, Alberta, Makar has turned in four 20-goal seasons in his career, one of just 12 defensemen in league history to post at least that many. He also notched his 500th NHL point March 28 in his 467th career game. He\u2019s the fourth-fastest defenseman to reach that milestone, behind only Hall of Famers Bobby Orr (396 games), Paul Coffey (422) and Denis Potvin (465).<\/p>\n
The core of Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and captain Gabriel Landeskog helped the Avalanche to a Stanley Cup title in 2022. Makar had eight goals and 21 assists during the championship run to capture the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs MVP.<\/p>\n
Makar\u2019s younger brother, Taylor, recently signed a two-year contract with the Avalanche that runs through the 2027-28 season. Taylor Makar made his NHL debut Nov. 1 in San Jose, Calif., as the brothers became the first siblings to appear in the same game while playing for the Avalanche. The Stastny brothers \u2014 Anton, Peter and Marian \u2014 accomplished the feat when the team was the Quebec Nordiques.<\/p>\n
AP\u2019s Stephen Whyno and John Wawrow contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER \u2014\u00a0Cale Makar signed an eight-year, $163.2 million extension Friday that will make him the highest-paid player in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,1116,70469,70965,192,144,5277,5,4,70966],"class_list":["post-651418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-avalanche","tag-cale-makar","tag-cale-makar-contract","tag-cale-makar-extension","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-nhls-highest-paid-player"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117175647172889791","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}