The Colorado Avalanche have locked up the best defenseman in hockey. Cale Makar has signed an eight-year contract extension worth $20.4 million annually, keeping him in Denver through the 2034-35 season in a deal that sets a new record for a defenceman in the NHL.
Makar, 27, has one year remaining on the six-year deal he signed in 2021. The extension kicks in after that, guaranteeing that the Calgary native will spend the next decade of his career in an Avalanche sweater.
“Cale is a generational defenseman and his accomplishments speak for themselves,” said Avalanche General Manager Joe Sakic. “He is obviously a tremendous competitor and player but even more so a great person, teammate and ambassador for the Avalanche and the Rocky Mountain region.”
Makar said Colorado has “truly become a second home to us” and expressed his commitment to bringing another Stanley Cup to Denver. “I look forward to getting back on the ice with my teammates and continuing to work toward our goal of bringing the Stanley Cup back to the Mile High City.”
What Makar Has Already Accomplished
The signing reflects a career that has already placed Makar among the greatest defencemen in hockey history. He is a Stanley Cup champion (2022), a two-time Norris Trophy winner (2021-22 and 2024-25), and holds both the Conn Smythe Trophy (2022) and Calder Trophy (2019-20). He is one of only three players in NHL history to win all three — alongside Bobby Orr and Brian Leetch.
In 470 regular-season games, Makar has recorded 507 points at a rate that puts him in extraordinarily rare company. Only two defencemen in NHL history have averaged at least a point per game across their careers — Orr at 1.39 and Paul Coffey at 1.09. Makar is the third. Among Avalanche defencemen all-time, he leads in every meaningful offensive category.
Last season — his second Norris Trophy campaign in 2024-25 — Makar led all NHL defencemen with 30 goals and 62 assists for 92 points, breaking his own franchise records. His 30 goals made him the first defenceman to reach that mark since Mike Green in 2008-09. He is just the ninth defenceman in NHL history and the 18th instance to achieve the feat.
In the 2025-26 season, Makar narrowly missed a third Norris — finishing as runner-up — while posting 79 points in 75 games, with 20 goals and 59 assists. He reached the 20-goal mark for the third consecutive season, becoming the first defenceman to post three straight 20-goal campaigns since Phil Housley and Al MacInnis both accomplished it 34 years ago. He was the eighth-best player in the league in average ice time at 24:51 per game.
The Historic Numbers
Makar’s playoff record is equally exceptional. In 90 postseason games, he has accumulated 90 points — the fifth-highest points-per-game by a defenceman in Stanley Cup Playoff history among those with at least 50 games played. His 26 playoff goals are the most of any active NHL defenceman.
During the 2022 Stanley Cup run, he became the third-youngest defenceman ever to win the Conn Smythe Trophy, and his 29 points led all scorers on the champion Avalanche — only the sixth time a defenceman has paced the scoring on a championship team. He recorded five points in a potential series-clinching game in the Western Conference Final, the first defenceman in NHL history to do so.
Makar reached 500 career points in his 467th game last March — the fourth-fastest defenceman in history to that milestone, behind only Orr (396 games), Coffey (422), and Denis Potvin (465).
Internationally, Makar led Canada’s defence at the 2026 Winter Olympics, contributing six points in six games as Canada won silver. He also won gold at the 2025 Four Nations Faceoff and the 2018 IIHF World Junior Championship.
How He Got Here
Makar was selected fourth overall by Colorado in the 2017 NHL Draft, becoming the highest-drafted player to come directly from the Alberta Junior Hockey League. He won the Hobey Baker Award at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst as a sophomore — the first player in school history to do so — before making one of the most remarkable NHL debuts of all time: 72 hours after winning the Hobey Baker and 48 hours after playing in the NCAA title game, he debuted in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and scored his first NHL goal on his first shot. He remains the only defenceman in NHL history to score his first career goal while making his debut in the playoffs.
At 27 and under contract through his mid-thirties, Makar’s extension positions the Avalanche to build around him through what should be several more peak years. The franchise’s goal of a second Stanley Cup since Sakic’s days on the ice remains the stated ambition — and Makar is the centrepiece of any plan to achieve it.
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