How many Florida Panthers equal one Cale Makar contract?

On Friday, Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar became the highest-paid player in NHL history, agreeing to an eight-year extension worth $164 million at an annual salary of $20.4 million.

For perspective, the Florida Panthers' 2026-27 team salary is currently $103,763,214, with only captain Aleksander Barkov making half of Makar's salary at $10 million. Overall, Florida will pay their forwards a combined $68,385,714, its defensemen $27,377,500, and its two goalies $8 million.

To put that historic contract into perspective, we compared Makar's $20.4 million cap hit to different combinations of Panthers players.

Makar's salary nearly equals Florida's entire defense

For example, if we removed Seth Jones' entire $7 million salary from the books, the remaining six defensemen: Aaron Ekblad ($6.1 million), Gustav Forsling ($5.75 million), Niko Mikkola ($5 million), Radko Gudas ($1.5 million), Dmitry Kulikov ($1.152 million), and Uvis Balinskis ($875,000) would carry a salary of $20,377,500.

Makar earns more than Florida's entire goaltending tandem

Meanwhile, if we grouped Jones in with goalies Jacob Markström ($6 million) and Akira Schmid ($2 million), we'd only spend $15 million, leaving enough room to add either Anton Lundell ($5 million) or Brad Marchand ($5.25 million) and still fall short of Makar's annual salary.

Barkov and Tkachuk combined don’t match Makar

When we break down the Panthers' forward group, there are a dozen ways to look at it. Barkov ($10 million) and Matthew Tkachuk ($9.5 million) combine for $19.5 million, still nearly $1 million shy of Makar's annual salary. But we could still add Lars Eller or Sam Lafferty's $850,000 salary to theirs and still come up short of $20.4 million.

The Panthers also have three other forwards earning at least $8 million annually: Sam Reinhart ($8.625 million), Brady Tkachuk ($8.2 million), and Sam Bennett ($8 million). Any pairing of those stars quickly pushes the total beyond Makar's cap hit, but separating them creates room to add players such as Eetu Luostarinen ($3 million), Garnet Hathaway ($1.2 million), Eller, Lafferty, or Jonah Gadjovich ($905,000) while still approaching the same figure.

It takes up to 11 Panthers to match Makar's salary

Barkov's $10 million salary serves as the perfect starting point for these examples. If we pair him with Tkachuk's $9.5 million cap hit, the Panthers still come up short of Makar's annual salary, even after adding a league-minimum contract such as Eller, Lafferty, Gadjovich, Kulikov, or Balinskis.

The comparison becomes even more remarkable when Barkov is grouped with Florida's lowest-paid players: Luostarinen, Hathaway, Gadjovich, Eller, Lafferty, Gudas, Kulikov and Balinskis, whose nine contracts equal just $20,332,500, barely matching Makar's annual salary.

Finally, if we swap Barkov's $10 million cap hit for Lundell and Mikkola, who together total the same amount, it takes 11 Panthers contracts to reach a similar total.

A contract for the NHL Record Book

As fun as this exercise would be for all NHL teams, some results would be laughable, since several clubs struggle to reach the salary cap floor, meaning Makar's future salary is a significant portion of another franchise's entire cap. Regarding how the Panthers have spent their money, there aren't many expensive deals in the lineup, and the players value sticking together to win championships more than asking for a rich contract to stand alone above everyone else.

They say defense wins championships, and Makar is definitely one of the greatest to play the position. But like so many other teams that invest most of their money in one or two players, it still takes depth, balance, and an entire roster to win the Stanley Cup.

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