DENVER (AP) \u2014 Joe Sakic was back in the goal-scoring business Sunday night in an alumni game that featured some of his Stanley Cup-winning Colorado Avalanche teammates.<\/p>\n
Just a few shifts for old time\u2019s sake as the Hall of Fame forward turned front office executive was paired on a line with Peter Forsberg and Milan Hejduk. He scored early off a pass from Hejduk.<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s back to the deal-making business for Sakic with training camp around the corner. <\/p>\n
Sakic\u2019s trying to wrap up a contract extension that will keep Cale Makar, a two-time Norris Trophy winner as the league\u2019s top defenseman, in Denver well into the future. Makar is coming off a season in which he had 20 goals and 59 assists. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue talking,\u201d Sakic said before taking the ice against the University of Denver alumni at Magness Arena. \u201cI\u2019m pretty confident that he\u2019ll be signed before the season starts.\u201d<\/p>\n
There have already been some big contracts signed this offseason, including Bowen Byram\u2019s $75 million, six-year contract extension with the Chicago Blackhawks that\u2019s set to make him the highest paid defenseman. <\/p>\n
\u201cReally? I haven\u2019t noticed that,\u201d Sakic cracked about the contracts and how it might affect the market for Makar. \u201cLike I said, I\u2019m not worried about it. I don\u2019t think Cale\u2019s worried about it. Dialog\u2019s been great and when there\u2019s an agreement, we\u2019ll gladly announce it. Hopefully something will be done before the start of training camp.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sakic also had no updates on contract talks with coach Jared Bednar, who\u2019s entering his final year. The Avalanche are coming off a season in which they had the best record in hockey before being swept by the Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference Final. Bednar, the franchise\u2019s all-time leader in wins, led Colorado to a Stanley Cup title in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything\u2019s great. Not worried about that,\u201d Sakic said. \u201cThere\u2019s been coaches, there\u2019s been players that have gone into their last year of their deals before, and there\u2019s going to be in the future, so not really concerned about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Sakic & Co., the game Sunday was a chance to take the ice with teammates \u2014 and honor old friends. The teams took a moment to remember Claude Lemieux, who died in May at 60.<\/p>\n
Lemieux was part of the Avalanche\u2019s Stanley Cup team in 1995-96, which was the team\u2019s first season in Denver after moving from Quebec. The Avalanche won again in 2000-01.<\/p>\n
The entire weekend was a chance to catch up and swap tales. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is just the perfect type of game to get together, get on the ice … spend some time for a few days, and then just think about the old times,\u201d Sakic said. <\/p>\n
Forsberg felt the same way. He said his foot keeps him from skating as much as he would like and was hoping he wouldn\u2019t be benched.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy playing form is not that good anymore,\u201d the Hall of Famer said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Forsberg\u2019s eager to see Sakic step back into the general manager role in addition to serving as president of hockey operations. Sakic inherited the GM job again when Chris MacFarland left for the front office of the Nashville Predators.<\/p>\n
It was a busy offseason for Sakic as he sent Valeri Nichushkin to the Columbus Blue Jackets for draft picks. That was a way to free up space given Nichushkin had four more seasons left on his contract at a salary cap hit of $6.125 million. The savings could be used to possibly wrap up a long-term extension with Makar.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust feels like everything Joe touches, it goes well,\u201d Forsberg said. \u201cI\u2019m really happy to see him back.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full NHL coverage here <\/p>\n
Pat Graham, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 Joe Sakic was back in the goal-scoring business Sunday night in an alumni game that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-869139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}