Cale Makar is entering the final year of his current deal, a $9 million cap hit that already looks like a bargain for a 2-time Norris Trophy winner. He posted 20 goals and 59 assists last season, and he's been eligible to negotiate an extension since July 1. Now the clock is starting to matter for a different reason.
Sakic isn't hedging on this one. He's on record saying he's "pretty confident" Makar gets signed before the regular season, and reportedly optimistic it wraps up before camp even opens. That's not GM-speak deflection — that's a guy who expects to be posting a signing photo soon.
There's also a real deadline lurking here. Makar is eligible to sign an 8-year extension with Colorado through September 15 — after that, the new CBA caps extension length at 7 years. So if the Avalanche want to lock him up for the max term, the calendar is doing some of the negotiating for them.
The market has already moved, too. Bowen Byram, once Makar's teammate in Colorado before getting traded, just signed a $75 million, 6-year deal with the Blackhawks that's set to make him the NHL's highest-paid defenseman. Makar is a tier above Byram, and everyone in the league knows it — which means whatever Colorado pays him almost certainly resets that number again.
For the Avalanche, this isn't just about keeping their best player happy. It's about locking in the cap number now, before it climbs further, and building the rest of the roster around whatever that hit ends up being. Sakic clearly wants this off his plate before puck drop — and if his confidence is warranted, Colorado fans could be reading a max-term, record-setting extension before the leaves change.