Avalanche make Nathan MacKinnon highest paid player in NHL

For the past five years, Colorado Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon was considered one of the best values in the NHL and one of the league's most underpaid players.

It is a title he did not love, and now he will no longer have to deal with it.

Thanks to the new eight-year, $100 million-plus contract extension he signed with the Avalanche on Tuesday, MacKinnon will become the NHL's highest paid player with a $12.6 million per year average salary. That new contract will start with the 2023-24 season, at which point he will surpass Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid ($12.5 million) as the league's highest paid player.

McDavid is the only other player in the league with an average annual salary higher than $11.7 million. 

Artemi Panarin (New York Rangers), Auston Matthews (Toronto Maple Leafs), Erik Karlsson (San Jose Sharks), Drew Doughty (Los Angeles Kings) and John Tavares (Toronto Maple Leafs) are the only other $11 million per year players in the league at the current moment. 

A No. 1 overall pick by the Avalanche in 2013, MacKinnon has blossomed into one of the league's most dominant players and has become the centerpiece of the league's most exciting team. 

MacKinnon has finished in the top five of the league's MVP voting in three of the past five seasons and just helped the Avalanche win the Stanley Cup during the 2021-22 season.

They figure to enter this season as one of the top favorites to win it again.