- Cale Makar’s $20.4 million cap hit hands Quinn Hughes a number to point at in Minnesota
- Hughes has one year left at $7.85 million and hits free agency next summer
- Read below for the Sept. 15 deadline squeezing any eight-year offer from the Wild
Cale Makar got his money Friday. The bill landed in Minnesota.
Makar signed an eight-year extension worth $163.2 million in Colorado, a $20.4 million cap hit no player in league history has reached. Quinn Hughes is the next elite defenseman in line for a raise, and his camp now has that figure sitting across the table from Bill Guerin.
Our rundown of the richest deals ever signed has Makar clear of the field:
We asked how long it takes before somebody knocks him off the top. The answer might already be in St. Paul.
Second place on that list belongs to the Wild. Kirill Kaprizov’s eight-year, $136 million extension sits ahead of Alex Ovechkin, Leon Draisaitl, Shea Weber, Jack Eichel and Sidney Crosby. Minnesota already carries the second-largest total ever handed out and is about to stack another one on top of it.
Hughes is playing out the six-year, $47.1 million deal he signed in Vancouver in 2021. That $7.85 million cap hit has turned into one of the great bargains in the sport, and it expires with him headed to unrestricted free agency next summer.
He earned the raise in a hurry. Hughes put up 53 points in 48 regular-season games after the December trade, added 15 more in 11 playoff games and dragged the Wild out of the first round for the first time since 2015.
Kaprizov and Hughes needed 93 seconds to open Game 3 against Colorado. Take a look at both goals:
Term is where this gets complicated. Michael Russo reported in late July that the Wild want to go five to eight years, while a three-year deal fits Hughes better because it would line his next trip to free agency up with brother Jack’s in New Jersey.
A calendar is squeezing both sides. Teams can hand their own players eight-year extensions only through Sept. 15, and the new CBA drops the maximum to seven on Sept. 16. That deadline is part of what pushed Colorado to close the Makar deal this week.
Ryan Lambert of The Hockey News argued Friday that Hughes should be asking for more than Makar rather than less, since a player on his second team with a year left has leverage a franchise lifer never uses.
Guerin called re-signing Hughes priority No. 1 after the season, and the talks have been quiet since. Makar’s contract just told the Wild what that priority costs.
