When Adam Fox inked his extension with the Rangers five years ago Sunday, it reset the market for defensemen coming off their entry-level deals and instantly placed him in the upper tier of blue-line contracts around the league. He landed a seven-year, $66.5 million deal — a $9.5 million rate in average annual value — months after completing his Norris Trophy-winning season in 2020-21 and has lived up to the point-per-game expectations since.
But over time, as the market for blueliners has continued to get reset with massive deal after massive deal, Fox’s annual price for the Blueshirts has quickly turned into a fleeting bargain. Avalanche star Cale Makar inked a $163.2 million extension over the summer, marking the first time in NHL history that a player topped $20 million in average annual value. Defenseman Quinn Hughes, an unrestricted free agent after the season, will likely surpass that threshold, too, regardless of whether his contract arrives via a Wild extension or with another team.
Fox, according to the CBA, will be extension-eligible once the 2027-28 season ends and the final year of his deal begins. He’ll only be 30 years old at that point, too, and 31 when his current contract ends. It is then that the Rangers will be forced to adjust to the rest of the market, where rising salary caps and massive deals will continue to reshape what the ultimate price tag will be for Fox’s next deal.
But it’s a topic worth revisiting this week given the anniversary of Fox’s extension with the team he grew up rooting for, the milestone of his 500th career game Monday night against the Kings and his tear of assists to open the season. Fox collected 16 assists through the Rangers’ first 13 games, leading all defensemen and sitting behind only Connor McDavid’s 25 for the NHL lead. His point total ranks 12th in the NHL, too, and leads all Rangers. It’s a 103-point pace, which would shatter Fox’s previous career-best of 74 in the 2021-22 campaign that also featured the extension.
