The Colorado Avalanche have been cruising along this season, as they head into a Wednesday night matchup against the Dallas Stars with a record of 44-13-9. It helps a lot that they have the best player in the world in Nathan MacKinnon, as well as some supporting cast players around him. It also helps when goaltending is at its best, which there will be some who argue either side of that discussion.
Blackwood has had an extremely tough stretch these past couple of games he’s played in. The last game, against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Blackwood took over for Scott Wedgewood 13 minutes into the game. Both goalies struggles heavily, as the team dropped the game 7-2. Blackwood allowed four goals in that limited time off of 19 shots. Against the Jets, Blackwood allowed two goals on 18 shots, while the game before, it was four goals on 24 shots. Finally, against the Dallas Stars, Blackwood allowed four goals on 11 shots.
As you can probably guess, none of those save percentages were good, at all. Each one was below .900.
Now, the Avalanche are missing some key pieces, with Gabriel Landeskog, Arturri Lehkonen and Logan O’Connor out. Ross Colton has been hurt but is expected back Wednesday against the Stars. It will help the team’s goaltenders when they get these guys back, bubt it’s still frustrating to go through this rough patch.
Earlier in the season, Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar mentioned how Blackwood “hasn’t played a ton of hockey.” That was due to an injury he suffered that required offseason surgery. Bednar seems to favour Blackwood and is hoping that he gets back to his old form—a form that was nearly unstoppable. If that doesn’t happen at some point, Bednar will have no choice but to start Wedgewood in the postseason.
Nathan MacKinnon pointed out the team’s miscommunications and anumber of lineup changes recently as part of the reasons for their miscues. Getting those figured out soon will also play a big part in how the Avalanche finish up the season. The Stars are hot on Colorado’s tail, behind by just three points, though they’ll finish Wednesday up by playing one less game than Dallas up to that point, which gives them a game in hand.
Both Blackwood and Wedgewood have had their fair share of bad games. That’s going to happen with pretty much every team. They both have multiple games of save percentages below .900. It’s just that they don’t have those games all the time. That’s the silver lining. Both goalies are reliable, but there are just some games that they are off. When the team is as healthy as it can be, we’ll see better hockey from everybody, which will help the goaltending. That’s really the best thing they can do right now.
There’s no question the Avalanche are going to be playoff contenders, but they desperately need to figure out their issues so that they don’t come back and haunt them when games matter the most. Goaltending will be key down the stretch, but it’s not all on them.