The rising salary cap didn't quite create the sticker shock many expected this summer in the NHL.

Don't worry, though. It's coming.

And the Colorado Avalanche, like every other team, will have to deal with it very soon.

Despite a $7.5 million jump in the cap on July 1, the contract market didn't change a whole lot. Leon Draisaitl signed a deal on Sept. 3, 2024, that makes him the highest-paid player in the league at $14 million a year, $750k more than Auston Matthews' salary.

It's a jump, but not a massive one, especially when you compare it to the percentage of the cap each player took up the first year of their deal. For Matthews, it was 15.06% of the Maple Leafs' cap. For Draisaitl, it's 14.66%.

If anything, it feels like Draisaitl could have gotten more.

The same thing happened w

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