Screen Shots: Connor Bedard, Colorado Avalanche and 2024 NHL UFA Defensemen

Welcome again to Screen Shots, a regular THN.com feature in which this writer tackles a few different hockey topics and breaks them down in a few paragraphs apiece. On to business, we go:

It’s been only two games from him, but the pressure on rookie phenom Connor Bedard is already through the roof. 

Bedard’s every on-ice shift is being Zaprudered in the hopes of discovering something about him nobody else has identified as of yet. And off the ice, Bedard’s media scrums look like a picture out of the Stanley Cup final, with reporters pushing up against one another in the hope they’ll get to ask the 18-year-old a question. 

Don’t get it twisted – there’s always pressure that comes with being the No. 1 overall pick in an NHL draft, so Bedard and his camp knew this was coming, and they trained him in how best to deal with every element of his playing career.

Still, this pressure feels like it’s reached a new level. A sliver of privacy at the rink for Bedard won’t be given up by media members, but it is what’s best for his mental health as he goes through the first punishing 82-game schedule of his playing career. It’s up to Chicago’s brain trust to figure out how to alleviate the crushing nature of media coverage for Bedard. The more they can keep him in a good mindset, the better he’s likely to produce during games.

Bedard isn’t an island unto himself – you can’t tell me there’s not a ton of pressure on fellow rookies Adam Fantilli and Leo Carlsson – but the fact is Bedard is playing in a media-heavy market on a Hawks team that desperately needs him to lead the way if they’re going to have any hope at all for being close to the playoff race this season. He’s a unique player, so it follows that the pressure he’s dealing with is unique to him as well.

The Colorado Avalanche locked up an important piece of their future Friday with the announcement they signed veteran defenseman Devon Toews to a seven-year contract extension with an average annual value of $7.25 million. That’s a sizeable raise on Toews’ current contract, which pays him $4.1 million per year through the end of this season.

The 29-year-old Toews was a big-time minute-munching D-man for Colorado last season, averaging 25:06 of ice time per game. He easily could’ve signed for more money with another team next summer, but like many players, he traded contract amount for contract length and made life easier for Avs GM Chris MacFarland as far as keeping Colorado’s lineup as competitive as possible for as long as possible.

That said, the Avalanche’s cap situation remains extremely tight and will get even tighter next season thanks to Toews’ new deal. 

As per PuckPedia, the Avs have 15 players under contract for the 2024-25 campaign, and they’re already $525,000 over the upper cap limit that year. Now, Colorado will get some relief when the cap ceiling rises by about $4 million next season, but that still leaves about $3 million for the Avalanche’s remaining eight players on the NHL roster.

Even if captain Gabriel Landeskog stays on the long-term injured reserve next season – a worst-case scenario from a competitive standpoint – the Avs will have a little more than $10 million for those eight open positions. That means many players they bring in will be on a league-minimum salary. That’s an approach that mirrors what many elite teams have to do on the cap front. You must pay your best players as your best players, then surround them with young (read: cheap) players on high-value deals.

With Toews and superstar Cale Makar, the Avs have the best one-two punch on the blueline of any NHL team. They’ve also got second-pair defensemen Bowen Byram and Josh Manson signed for at least this season and next season. So we’ll likely see their cap crunch affect their forward group and goaltending depth more than their ‘D.’ 

For now, it’s a great coup for them to land Toews on such a team-friendly extension, but soon enough, they’ll have difficult decisions to make on other parts of the lineup. It’s the circle of financial life in hockey’s top league, and it’s a balancing act that MacFarland and his boss, Joe Sakic, are keenly aware of.

Finally, let’s look at what the Toews contract extension means for next summer's class of UFA defensemen. 

If he had decided to go to the open market, Toews would’ve been the most pursued blueliner available. But there’s still going to be some talented veterans up for grabs – including Florida's Brandon Montour, Arizona’s Matt Dumba, Vancouver’s Tyler Myers, Carolina’s Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei, and Calgary’s Noah Hanifin.

A team with Cup championship aspirations would gladly snap up one of the aforementioned blueliners, but there’s every chance some or many of them will follow Toews’ lead and choose to sign an extension well in advance of the next off-season. But the agents for at least a few of those defensemen will look at the cap bump next season and advise their clients to hold out until the open market arrives. That could lead to a bidding war among teams looking to solidify their back end.

Some D-men may stay with the devil they know versus the devil they don’t, but hockey’s top league is a business first and foremost, and GMs can’t expect all players will take a discounted contract just to remain with their current team. There’s going to be movement and change because that’s what the cap system is designed to do. And how much a team wants to prioritize strength on defense will quickly become clear once the 2024-25 upper cap limit is finalized. 

Money talks, and though Toews and many others have shown money isn’t the only thing, it can’t help but be a deciding factor in the quality of the NHL’s top defense corps.