The Colorado Avalanche had some critics heading into the 2024-25 Stanley Cup playoffs. While a lot of people were actually fairly high on the team’s chances, a lot has been made of their starting goaltender, Mackenzie Blackwood.
When you go and check out Blackwood’s stats, you will notice that in the postseason section, only one total game has been recorded, simply because he was either on bad teams that didn’t clinch the playoffs, or he simply was the backup and never got a shot in the postseason. Either way, the point here is about his inexperience in the most important games of the entire NHL calendar.
Blackwood has not been perfect by any means, especially lately, but after what we saw from Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen to start the season, it’s clear that Blackwood can handle the pressure. Now, I don’t want to jump the gun from one playoff game, but playing lights out in your opponent’s arena, filled with a lot of Dallas Stars fans? To me, Blackwood handled the noise and pressure of the situation like a charm.
I’ve been very impressed by Blackwood’s ability to stretch out and make some absolutely incredible saves. Saturday night was no different. In the end, Blackwood proved that inexperience is much better than bad experiences. His play makes me feel safe that the Colorado Avalanche can make it far into the postseason.
Confidence is key. It feels as if Blackwood had a ton of it in this game. The skaters on the Avalanche are believing in their goaltender and that’s not something that can be said at the beginning of the season, with Georgiev (rightfully) feeling as if the team gave up on him.
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One of the things that has been talked about at length this season is depth scoring, or lack thereof. Teams should not have to rely on their top line/top players scoring the only goals for your team night in and night out. That’s not a good way of winning consistently. While it took some players a little bit longer to adjust, some others, like Martin Necas, didn’t take much time at all to adjust to Nathan MacKinnon’s line. While he didn’t have a shot on goal Saturday, he did assist on a goal. in 30 games the Avalanche this regular season, Necas had 11 goals and 17 assists.
Charlie Coyle is another player who I have been impressed by. Despite just two goals in 19 games with the Avalanche, he’s often in position to make some good plays. He records over 100 shots a year on a consistent basis, so he’s no stranger to trying to get the puck to the net, something he’s done 189 times in his career.
Lastly, I have also been impressed by Brock Nelson. We have a second-line center who has played pretty well since coming over from the New York Islanders. He finished the regular season with a 52.1 percent face-off win rate
The Avalanche will need more (and even better) results from their newer players. Like I mentioned, having only your superstar players score goals is not a recipe for success. If Mackenzie Blackwood is going to succeed, he needs his teammates in front of him to make plays on the other end of the ice. We’ll see what happens in the next three games. Hopefully, the Avalanche can manage to win them all so that they can move on to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.