The Colorado Avalanche made it to the Western Conference Final in last season’s postseason run but fell to the Vegas Golden Knights, who eventually fell to the Carolina Hurricanes in the Final. There were a few things that doomed the Avs in that series against Vegas, but goaltending wasn’t necessarily one of them.
Still, not everybody is sold on the team’s immediate future in net. Take Adam Gretz of Bleacher Report for instance. In the Avalanche portion of his “way too early bold predictions for every NHL team” article from the other day, Gretz focused on Scott Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood. His concern lays in whether or not Wedgewood has the ability to follow up the 2025-26 season with another strong year.
He also pointed out the hard truth that Blackwood was “wildly inconsistent” last season, which I felt the same. Wedgewood certainly earned his starting role in the postseason. But even if Wedgewood wins the starting job out of training camp, he will still have the “inexperience” label hanging over his head.
The Avalanche skaters will need to play strong in front of whoever starts in net each night. Especially in the Vegas series, there were too many instances where they couldn’t generate enough offense to help keep the team’s goaltending on their skates. That just isn’t fair to the goalies.
The good thing about inexperience is that it doesn’t last forever. I know that the postseason is a different beast than the regular season. Assuming the season goes the way everybody expects it to, Colorado will have another opportunity to flip the postseason script and narrative that their championship window is closing.
The loss of Valeri Nichushkin does hurt, especially with the fact that Brock Nelson and Martin Necas hadn’t stepped up in the playoffs. Those two players in particular will have to figure their game out when the time comes.
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