Avs priority is re-signing Makar; Cap space will shrink when that happens
The time has come for the Avalanche to tighten its belt, and when looking at the team’s 2021-22 salary structure, the decisions will be difficult — outside the obvious one.
Star defenseman Cale Makar is a restricted free agent who must get paid. His expiring three-year, entry-level contract earned him approximately $1.94 million, according to Capfriendly.com, and the 22-year-old will quadruple that amount next season alone if he’s truly considered among the best at what he does.
The comparisons: San Jose’s Erik Karlsson, who leads all NHL defensemen with an $11.5 million annual cap hit, followed by Los Angeles’ Drew Doughty ($11 million), Nashville’s Roman Josi ($9.1 million), New Jersey’s P.K. Subban ($9 million) and Vegas’ Alex Pietrangelo ($8.8 million).
Four of those five guys are right-shot, two-way players like Makar, and if I had to pick one of them to build a team around, I’d choose Makar because of his age and Bobby Orr ability. If the Avs think the same (and I believe they do), erase at least half of Colorado’s $19 million projected available cap space (not including the player they will lose to the expansion Seattle Kraken) and decide from there.
Lock up Makar and then go see if you can afford to re-sign left wing Gabe Landeskog and goalie Philipp Grubauer, both unrestricted free agents, plus RFA forward Tyson Jost and make a handful of modest signings to round out the roster. Colorado’s cap space will become more clear after the July 21 expansion draft — one week before free agency opens — when the Kraken selects one player from the Avs.
Landeskog, who just finished his ninth year as the Avs’ captain, would be a good fit at $6 million annually over a long-term deal. But if Landeskog wants $8 million a year, the Avs probably won’t make the deal and turn their focus to signing Grubauer and/or UFA forward Brandon Saad.
Landeskog and Saad are both 28. Both shoot left and prefer to play on their strong side. But the Avs can’t re-sign both if they don’t make other moves to dump salary. And 2019 first-round draft pick Alex Newhook, 20, is destined to play left wing or center in a top-six role at a $908,333 cap hit next season.
So it’s probably either Landeskog or Saad who will stay, and given the cap constraints, Saad is more likely to take less to stay, while Landeskog is more likely to test the market and get his $8 million annual long-term deal.
The Seattle Kraken needs a captain. Can you think of another player other than Landeskog they would want as their first captain?
So that’s why Gabe could be gone. I believe the Avs want him to take less to stay, but he could get much more and there could be a highly attractive landing spot in Seattle.
As for Jost, whom the Avs tried to move ahead of the 2020 trade deadline, he will get a hefty raise from the $874,125 cap hit he had last season.
He now plays the game the way general manager Joe
Sakic and coach Jared Bednar demand. Jost, 23, is rock solid away from the puck — forechecking, backchecking, penalty killing — and if he can find the offensive game that made him the 10th overall pick of the 2016 draft, his value will continue to rise.
So Jost might take another bridge deal with an RFA tag at the end of it, another prove-it deal that could fetch him more money in the long run.
Bottom line: Makar and Jost are shoo-ins to remain with the
Avs. But Colorado might have just one spot to choose between Landeskog, Grubauer and Saad.