The Minnesota Wild have been trying to negotiate a contract extension with defenseman Quinn Hughes this summer as he enters the final year of his contract. But as Hughes has spent the summer hanging out with his brother, Jack, it felt like a key development would happen when Cale Makar agreed to his extension with the Colorado Avalanche.
That domino finally fell on Friday afternoon when the Avalanche announced that Makar has agreed to an eight-year, $163.2 million contract extension. The deal easily makes him the highest-paid player in the NHL with an average annual value (AAV) of $20.4 million.
While Makar’s deal gives the Wild an important data point in their negotiation with Hughes, it also could leave them with plenty of regret as they try to extend him before the start of next season.
Cale Makar’s contract extension may have just cost the Wild millions
Hughes and Makar were always going to be connected in their contract negotiations, but there wasn’t a rule that said that the Wild had to wait. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman speculated earlier this summer that the Wild would agree to a three-year extension worth $18 million per season but the two sides have waited either to find out what Makar’s deal would look like or because Hughes has been all over the country since winning a gold medal in last year’s Olympics.
Whatever the reason, it appears that approach is a costly one. The market was already reset this summer when Leo Carlsson signed a five-year, $90 million ($18 million AAV) offer sheet with the Philadelphia Flyers that was matched by the Anaheim Ducks and Maclin Celebrini took it a step further with his five-year, $94 million ($18.8 million AAV) extension with the San Jose Sharks.
Makar’s deal is the most damaging of them all, however, as a top defenseman. Both players have won Norris Trophies in their career and rank first and second in points by defensemen since they entered the NHL full-time during the 2019-20 season. You can also argue that Makar’s value to the Avalanche is similar to Hughes’s to the Wild, but it now leaves them with an important decision that could have been decided much sooner.
Wild could pay dearly for waiting to extend Quinn Hughes
If the Wild were able to finalize a three-year deal worth $18 million as Friedman predicted, they might not be in as big of a mess right now. But it could have come down to a hesitance to have two big contracts on the books as Kirill Kaprizov is making $17 million per season or Hughes’s camp preferring to wait things out to get the biggest deal possible.
The Wild also could have been their own worst enemy in negotiations as owner Craig Leipold said in an Minnesota Public Radio interview this summer that they were pushing for a five-year deal. But most outlets including The Athletic’s Michael Russo suggested Hughes wanted a three-year extension to sync up with Jack Hughes’s contract with the New Jersey Devils fans.
With the Wild also looking at acquiring a top-line center, fitting Hughes’s contract into the future will be a challenge even with $45.98 million in projected cap space next season according to Puckpedia. It’s a problem that would have been made much easier if they had gotten Hughes to sign on the dotted line earlier this summer and will now have Minnesota paying dearly if they want to keep Hughes around beyond next season.
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