SAN JOSE — The Colorado Avalanche has locked up another key piece of the team’s core with a huge contract.
Devon Toews and the club agreed to a seven-year contract extension Friday morning, the team announced. Toews would have been an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season, but is now under team control through 2030-31. The deal is worth $7.25 million per season and $50.75 million in total, The Denver Post confirmed through a league source.
“(I’m) happy,” Toews told reporters in Los Angeles. “It took all summer, but I’m happy we were able to find some middle ground and get a deal done. Family, everything — we’re happy to be in Colorado and happy to be with the Avs for another seven (years).”
Toews has finished in the top 14 of Norris Trophy voting each of the past three seasons. While Cale Makar is clearly the team’s No. 1 defenseman, no other NHL club has had its “No. 2” guy finish ahead of Toews in the Norris voting in any of those seasons. This deal could ensure the Avs have one of the best 1-2 punches at the position for at least the next four seasons.
Toews is currently set to be the 29th-highest paid defenseman in the NHL for the 2024-25 season. He could actually slide down the list with Brandon Montour, Noah Hanifin and Moritz Seider all in need of new contracts as well.
“Joe (Sakic) is a magician,” Sharks coach David Quinn said Friday morning after hearing the details of the contract. “(Toews) is a great skater, a real honest player who can do a little bit of everything. He’s a puck mover. He defends. He’s got great gaps, a great stick. He can contribute offensively. I think he’s a real underrated player in this league.”
Had Toews reached July 1 without an extension, the market was likely to be significant for the veteran defenseman. Toews became the 15th active defenseman to sign a contract worth $7-million plus per season when he was eligible to be an unrestricted free agent.
Three of the other 14 actually reached the marketplace. Vegas signed Alex Pietrangelo for seven years at $8.8 million in 2020. New Jersey inked Dougie Hamilton for seven years at $9 million in 2021. Carolina landed Dmitry Orlov for two years at $7.75 million.
Orlov is older than Pietrangelo, Hamilton and Toews were at the time they signed and is also not in their class as a defenseman. Pietrangelo and Hamilton are pretty good comparables for Toews, both as players on the ice and what kind of money he might have been able to get on the open market.
“We both had our positions and you just try to find something that’s in the middle,” Toews said. “I want to win and I want this team to win, so if I’m able to give a little to help the cause, it’s what I want to do.”
While this deal will be universally praised as a long-term win for the Avalanche and its ability to keep a championship-worthy core together, there will still be work to do in the short-term to keep Colorado as a top contender within the constraints of the salary cap.
The Avs now have nine forwards, five defensemen and goaltender Alexandar Georgiev under contract for 2024-25. That includes captain Gabriel Landeskog at $7 million. Both he and the club have publicly expressed hope that he’ll be able to return to full health by next season.
Those 15 players would cost $84.872 million against the salary cap, according to CapFriendly. The cap ceiling this season is $83.5 million, but early projections from the NHL have it rising by several million dollars next year. Even with the first significant bump since before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Avs will need to get creative to fill out the roster.
Players on one-year contracts like Jonathan Drouin and Tomas Tatar will likely be hard to keep, particularly if they have success this year. New versions of them on cost-conscious deals could be needed. Young players on cheap entry-level contracts like Jean-Luc Foudy, Ondrej Pavel, Nikolai Kovalenko and Sam Malinsnki could be valuable depth options.
The following year is when the cap gymnastics could hit another level, because it will be time for new contracts with Mikko Rantanen and Bo Byram. Rantanen might not get a huge raise from his current deal ($9.25 million cap hit), but if Bryam stays healthy he will — and the Avs will definitely want to keep him.
It could make other good, important players more expendable but that’s how the salary cap system works in the NHL. The priority for the best teams is to keep the inner-circle core players first and worry about the rest of the roster second.
Toews has earned his place in that group. An Avs team with Nathan MacKinnon, Rantanen, Makar and Toews would have both a high ceiling and a high floor for the rest of the decade. And if Landeskog can make his way back to the player he was before this injury, he’s in that group as well.
“Getting a deal done with Devon at the start of the season was a priority for us,” Avs general manager Chris MacFarland said in a team statement. “He has emerged as one of the best defensemen in the NHL and is a huge part of the core of this team.”
