Makar's Deal Is Coming. The Cap Math Is the Story.

Cale Makar is re-signing in Colorado — that part was settled the moment the news broke on August 4, and I noted as much in the piece I filed the next day. What wasn't settled then, and still isn't, is the number. A contract potentially worth more than $130 million takes time to negotiate, and that timeline is now the thing worth watching.

The cap implications matter because Colorado is not a team with slack to spare. The blue line depth behind Makar is thin — the drop-off from the top pairing to the next option is steep enough that the team flagged it as a high-priority need heading into this offseason. Locking Makar in at a number that crowds the rest of the roster makes the secondary scoring problem harder to solve, not easier. And that secondary scoring problem is what ended their season in May.

Makar posted 14 goals and 41 assists last season and averaged more than 24 minutes a night. He is the kind of player you pay whatever it takes. That is not the question. The question is what the structure looks like — term, cap hit, how much flexibility survives it — and whether Colorado can still address the right wing hole left by the Nichushkin trade while Schwartz remains out with no timeline.

The deal will get done. My read is that the next few weeks are about the shape of it, and the shape of it will tell you a lot about how aggressive Colorado can actually be before camp opens.