Avalanche re-signs Tyson Barrie for four years

The NHL’s most interesting contract stalemate came to an end Sunday afternoon as the Colorado Avalanche and Tyson Barrie agreed on a four-year, $22 million contract extension. The deal will pay Barrie an annual average value of $5.5 million per season, a significant jump from the $2.6 million on his previous contract.

The deal was agreed upon after the two sides went through the arbitration process on Friday morning and were awaiting the ruling of the award from the arbitrator. The four-year pact follows the trend of most big-money deals signed by the Avalanche with their star players in that the real salary starts out low and rises throughout the life of the contract. For this deal, Barrie will make $5M, $5.25M, $5.75M, and $6M in each of the years.

Barrie has been one of the more interesting contract situations this off-season as he has proven himself to be an elite point-producing defenseman, having scored 140 points in his last 222 games but concerns about his work in his own zone have led many to wonder how exactly the organization would value him in his bid for a significant pay raise. Colorado’s very quiet increased investment in analytics also likely played a role in ensuring the team did not lose Barrie, a stats darling.

Ultimately, the Avalanche were determined not to see this turn into another Ryan O’Reilly situation, the Avalanche were able to lock up another member of their core for the foreseeable future. While four years only buys out one year of Barrie’s unrestricted free agency years, it allows both the team and player to re-assess their respective situations while Barrie is still in his prime and the Avalanche should be in their most competitive window.

Barrie’s signing leaves the Avalanche with zero remaining unrestricted free agents left to sign and they have approximately $1.5 million left to work with in remaining salary cap space should they continue to try to fill out their roster.