Mackenzie Blackwood is here to stay for the foreseeable future in the Mile High City. The Colorado Avalanche announced they signed Blackwood to a five year contract extension. Colorado received Blackwood in a trade from the rebuilding San Jose Sharks that sent two draft picks, Nikolai Kovalenko, and goaltender Alexandar Georgiev to the Bay Area. It’s a move, in fact the literal exact move, we advocated Colorado to make since October. News of the contract extension broke after Blackwood only played four games for the Avalanche, with a 3-1-0 record.
Blackwood gets a sense of stability in what has been a promising career derailed by injuries and poorly performing teams. After firing then general manager Ray Shero, the New Jersey Devils fully committed to a rebuild midway through the 2019-2020 NHL season. Blackwood’s promising performances prompted new general manager Tom Fitzgerald to give Blackwood the crease full time as they put the highly paid Cory Schneider on waivers.
Despite being thrown to the wolves Blackwood performed very well that season. His 7.90 goals saved above expected in 47 games played in the shortened season was good for 5th in the NHL. Injuries, limited playing time, and some very bad Devils teams led him to having a negative goals saved above expected every season until a 2023 offseason trade to the Sharks.
In his lone full season in San Jose, Blackwood reversed the trend and posted a 2.40 goals saved above expected on an absolutely terrible Sharks team. The Sharks gave up the most shots on average in 2023-2024 with 35. Blackwood had 21 games where he made more than 30 saves. The Columbus Blue Jackets were second in that category with 34.40 shots against per game and their leading goalie Elvis Merzlikins only made 16 such starts of 30 or more saves, to put that in perspective.
Blackwood has continued to trend in the right direction by posting a 5.90 goals saved above expected so far this season (entering play on Friday). That places him at 16th in the NHL and is welcome news to a Colorado team that has had a revolving door of goaltenders. Even in their current cup contention window the Colorado crease always seems like it’s full of changing faces. Philip Grubauer was supposed to be the answer until he left for the Seattle Kraken in free agency back in 2021-2022. Colorado had one year of Darcy Kuemper and won a cup with his “just good enough” goaltending. Georgiev was supposed to be Kuemper’s replacement on a surging Av’s team in their prime, but never lived up to the potential.
Given Blackwood’s injury history it would be unwise to give him the reigns as a true number one until he proves himself durable. Blackwood fits the profile of a very good 1A in a goalie tandem, playing between 40-45 games but unlikely to reach the 50 game threshold. Former Devils teammate Scott Wedgewood rounds out Colorado’s goalie tandem. Having the likes of Devon Toews and Cale Makar in front of him patrolling the blue line should help lighten Blackwood’s load and make his job even more manageable.
The five year commitment speaks to the confidence Colorado has in Blackwood. He’s shown flashes of being a goaltender that can match that contract so it was wise for Colorado to take the gamble. If he returns to the goalie he was in 2019-2020 it’ll be a huge win for Colorado.