Nathan MacKinnon will still be underpaid

Even with a league-high cap hit of $12.6 million, the Colorado Avalanche superstar will still be a team-friendly bargain, just like all the other superstars in the NHL are

You could make the argument that both Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon are underpaid.

There is no one among next summer’s free agent crop who will usurp him, so Nathan MacKinnon will go into the 2023-24 season as the highest-paid player in the NHL. He’ll also have the highest average annual salary of anyone in NHL history. And with an actual salary of $16.5 million in each of the first two seasons of his new deal, MacKinnon will also record the second-highest single-season salary in NHL history, just behind his former GM Joe Sakic, who pulled down $17 million in 1997-98 after signing an offer sheet with the New York Rangers that was matched by the Colorado Avalanche.

(The $16.5 million is significant in that it represents 20 percent of the current salary cap of $82.5 million. Under the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement, MacKinnon could have commanded that much as a yearly salary, but there was no way the Avalanche were going to do that, but they were willing to front-load the deal, something they have typically not done with other players. That means MacKinnon will make just over $49 million in the first three years of the deal, when the escrow payments will be just six percent. “I’ll take that anytime,” MacKinnon’s agent, Pat Brisson, told Hockey Unfiltered.

In doing so, MacKinnon will go from ridiculously underpaid to just underpaid. Generally regarded as the most underpaid player in the NHL throughout his last deal, MacKinnon will, to the penny, double his salary on this one. It may be ludicrous to suggest that a guy who is set to make $100.8 million over an eight-year period is underpaid, but there is no doubt that MacKinnon is just that. As is Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and every other elite player in the NHL.