Since heading to the Colorado Avalanche earlier this season, goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood has a 12-5 record. He has a save percentage (SV%) of .925. A lot of emphasis has been put on the Avalanche’s skaters. What do I mean by this? Unfortunately, there has been a lack of consistency throughout the year.
It’s been a bizarre season for the Avalanche. They started out with Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen and shook things up with the acquisitions of Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood. The former pair showed some signs of good play, but overall, the goaltending and defensive performances were uninspiring. Now? It has been the forwards who haven’t put up the numbers you’d hope for on a consistent basis.
The problem with this team right now is that they have had so many injuries and therefore have the most call-ups from their AHL team of any NHL squad this season. Again, there have been flashes of solid play by several of them (Nikita Prishchepov to name one), but you can’t go out there in games like this so often and expect a 10-game win streak. At some points, your goaltender will break down.
Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets seems like the obvious choice for the Vezina trophy at this stage of the 2024-25 season. The Colorado Avalanche just recently faced him and actually put up a quality performance in my opinion. Unfortunately, the Avs lost that game in the early stages of overtime.
Blackwood has been an incredibly consistent goaltender for the Avalanche. When that happens, the team (or any team, for that matter) is likely to be aggressive. While we didn’t see aggressiveness in Sunday afternoon’s first period against the Philadelphia Flyers, Blackwood made all of the stops the team needed him to make, and eventually, the team got going, winning 2-0.
I’m also interested in seeing how guys such as Martin Necas improves going forward. All of the help they can get up front is going to benefit Blackwood. While he won’t be winning the Vezina this year, if this team continues to be aggressive up front, there’s no telling how well Blackwood can be. It’s a refreshing restart from the bad goaltending/defensive play that we’ve witnessed in the recent past.
Onwards and upwards.