Cale Makar set the NHL cap-share record (Photo by Candice Ward/Getty Images)
Colorado extended Cale Makar on Aug. 28 for eight years and $163.2 million, an average annual value of $20.4 million. The Calgary-born defenceman becomes the highest-paid player the league has produced, and for Canadian clubs the number arrives as a benchmark rather than a curiosity. It is the figure every agent representing a Canadian team’s franchise player will now put on the table.
The raw dollar amount does not travel well across time. The cap has risen from $39 million in 2005-06 to a projected $113.5 million in 2027-28, so a contract’s real weight is the share of the ceiling it occupies. That share is what a general manager actually gives up: the portion of the roster budget removed from his control for the length of the deal.
RG calculated that share for every landmark contract since the cap arrived, measured against the ceiling in the season each deal took effect rather than the season it was signed. Makar leads the list. Behind him sits an unusual concentration of Canadian franchises.
How The Share Is Calculated
Each contract’s average annual value is divided by the salary cap upper limit in the first season the deal is in force. Extensions agreed a year or more in advance are credited to the season they begin. The ceiling has climbed by $8.5 million or more in each of the past three years, so crediting a deal to its signing date understates it badly. Makar’s extension does not begin until 2027-28.
Ceilings are the league’s published upper limits, including the three-year payroll ranges announced by the NHL and NHLPA.
The 2026-27 ceiling of $104 million and the 2027-28 figure of $113.5 million are projections the league has said remain subject to minor adjustment, so percentages resting on them can shift.
The Fifteen Largest Cap Shares Of The Cap Era#PlayerTeamAAVFirst seasonCap% of cap1Cale MakarColorado$20,400,0002027-28$113.5M*17.97%2Leo CarlssonAnaheim$18,000,0002026-27$104.0M*17.31%3Zdeno CharaBoston$7,500,0002006-07$44.0M17.05%4Alexander OvechkinWashington$9,538,4622008-09$56.7M16.82%5Macklin CelebriniSan Jose$18,800,0002027-28$113.5M*16.56%6Kirill KaprizovMinnesota$17,000,0002026-27$104.0M*16.35%7Connor McDavidEdmonton$12,500,0002018-19$79.5M15.72%8Sidney CrosbyPittsburgh$8,700,0002008-09$56.7M15.34%9Nathan MacKinnonColorado$12,600,0002023-24$83.5M15.09%10Auston MatthewsToronto$13,250,0002024-25$88.0M15.06%11Patrick KaneChicago$10,500,0002015-16$71.4M14.71%12Jonathan ToewsChicago$10,500,0002015-16$71.4M14.71%13Leon DraisaitlEdmonton$14,000,0002025-26$95.5M14.66%14Scott GomezNY Rangers$7,357,1432007-08$50.3M14.63%15Artemi PanarinNY Rangers$11,642,8572019-20$81.5M14.29%
* Projected ceiling. Subject to adjustment by the NHL.
Canada’s Clubs Have Been Paying The Steepest Shares
Nine of the thirty largest cap shares in league history belong to Canadian franchises. No other national grouping comes close, and the concentration in Toronto and Edmonton is remarkable.
PlayerClubAAVFirst seasonCap% of capOverall rankConnor McDavidEdmonton$12,500,0002018-19$79.5M15.72%7Auston MatthewsToronto$13,250,0002024-25$88.0M15.06%10Leon DraisaitlEdmonton$14,000,0002025-26$95.5M14.66%13Auston MatthewsToronto$11,639,0002019-20$81.5M14.28%16John TavaresToronto$11,000,0002018-19$79.5M13.84%19Carey PriceMontreal$10,500,0002018-19$79.5M13.21%24Elias PetterssonVancouver$11,600,0002024-25$88.0M13.18%25William NylanderToronto$11,500,0002024-25$88.0M13.07%26Connor McDavidEdmonton$12,500,0002026-27$104.0M*12.02%30
Toronto appears four times. In 2024-25 the Maple Leafs carried Matthews and Nylander at a combined 28.1 percent of the ceiling — two forwards consuming more than a quarter of the roster budget. Edmonton committed 29.4 percent to McDavid and Draisaitl across overlapping terms. Montreal’s Price extension was, at the time it began, among the largest goaltending commitments the cap era had seen, and the club spent years managing the consequences.
The pattern is worth holding onto when reading futures markets. Heavy top-end commitment is not automatically a competitive problem — Chicago carried Toews and Kane at 29.4 percent combined the season after winning the Cup — but it removes flexibility. Clubs in that position cannot absorb an injury to a depth player by spending their way out of it, and their season outcomes carry wider variance than the market typically prices.
Compare current sports betting odds across books before committing to a Canadian club’s season total, because the divergence on heavily committed rosters is usually larger than on balanced ones.
The Last Eight-Year Contract The NHL Will Ever Produce
Makar’s deal has a permanence no future signing can take from it. The collective bargaining agreement that begins Sept. 16, 2026 caps contract length at seven years for a player re-signing with his current club and six for a player switching teams. Makar signed on Aug. 28, nineteen days before the door shut.
That deadline explains the compression of records over the past year. Kirill Kaprizov set the AAV mark at $17 million in September 2025. Leo Carlsson reached $18 million on a matched offer sheet in July 2026. Macklin Celebrini went to $18.8 million weeks later. Makar cleared all three. Four record average values inside eleven months, three of them in one summer, as agents worked against a fixed date.
For Canadian clubs the consequence is structural. Shorter maximum terms mean elite players return to the table more often, which raises the frequency of exactly the negotiations Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver have found most difficult. It also means more roster movement in-season and a futures market that reprices faster than it used to. Anyone tracking sports betting lines through the season should expect division and Cup numbers to move on contract news in a way they rarely did under the old eight-year structure.
Before The Cap, Canadian Salaries Looked Nothing Like This
Prior to 2005 there was no ceiling and no published cap hit, only team payrolls varying by close to three to one across the league. The shares one player could take were far larger than anything the modern game permits.
Wayne Gretzky’s $3 million in 1991-92 was roughly 20.8 percent of the Los Angeles payroll — a bigger slice than Makar’s record deal takes from the projected 2027-28 cap. Mario Lemieux’s $11.32 million in 1996-97 was about 33.5 percent of Pittsburgh’s payroll and close to 47 percent of what an average NHL club spent that season. Jaromir Jagr’s roughly $10.36 million in 1999-2000 came to about 34 percent of the Penguins’ commitment.
We present these as estimates. Pre-cap figures were compiled by journalists and agents rather than published by the league, signing bonuses were allocated inconsistently between seasons, and deferred compensation was common — Lemieux was owed roughly $32.5 million in deferred money when Pittsburgh entered bankruptcy. The direction of the finding holds; the precision does not.
The Record Moves In Inches
Chara set the modern benchmark at 17.05 percent in 2006. Twenty years, two lockouts, a doubled salary cap and an entirely new labour agreement later, Makar has improved on it by less than a percentage point. The constraint has never been what a player is worth. It is how much of a roster one signature can responsibly remove.
Quinn Hughes and Matthew Schaefer are the next names the market is watching, and Makar’s figure is the comparable both sides will now argue from. History suggests whoever takes the record does so by a narrow margin.