The Colorado Avalanche have as good a chance as any team of winning the Stanley Cup. Nathan MacKinnon may win his second straight MVP award, Cale Makar has 30 goals, and their trade-deadline acquisitions are starting to pop. They have playoff experience and elite talent, just like a lot of Western Conference contenders. But their new goaltending tandem of Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood will make the Avalanche fall short in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Avalanche started this season with Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen as their goalies. That was the duo last year when they lost in the second round to the Dallas Stars. They got off to a rough start that forced general manager Chris MacFarland to make two trades to improve their goaltending. Annunen went to Nashville along with a sixth-round pick for Wedgewood. And Georgiev went to San Jose along with Nikolai Kovalenko and a second for Blackwood.
When he arrived in Colorado, Blackwood inked a five-year extension worth $5.25 million annually. With that contract, he has to be a Cup-winning goalie for the Avalanche. But throughout his career, he has not been. Before this season, he had four consecutive seasons with a save percentage below .900. This is the best season of his career, a .915 save percentage and 2.46 goals-against average, and that must continue.
The Avalanche have one of the best forwards in the world in Nathan MacKinnon. He leads the league in scoring just one year after winning his first Hart Trophy. Cale Makar is the best offensive defenseman in the world and is in the conversation for the best defenders as well. With that elite core, they must get good enough goaltending to make a deep playoff run.
Different Avalanche trades necessitate great goaltending
Colorado Avalanche goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood (39) defends the net in the first period against the St. Louis Blues at Ball Arena. Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images
The goaltending trades were far from the last ones that the Avalanche made this season. After those December deals, they traded Mikko Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes in January. They could not reach an extension with the star forward, and neither could Carolina, so they dealt him to the Dallas Stars.
The Avalanche have added scoring to try and replace Rantanen. Martin Necas and Jack Drury were the return in the Carolina deal, Brock Nelson came over from the Islanders, and Charlie Coyle made his way in from Boston. But even those four players together cannot replicate the amazing shot Rantanen possesses, especially on the power play.
Losing Ratanen puts even more pressure on Blackwood and Wedgewood heading into the playoffs. The Avalanche did everything they could to replace him, and now it is on this team to make the Cup Final regardless. Blackwood has never played in the playoffs, so he does not have an experience to build off of, but also has no demons to run from.
The most likely first-round opponent for the Avalanche is Rantanen and the Stars. They played last year in the second round with Rantanen on their side and fell in six games. It will be a tough matchup, but if Blackwood matches Jake Oettinger save-for-save, their elite talent can take over.
The only contender that can’t say they have an unequivocal goalie advantage over the Avalanche is the Edmonton Oilers. Stuart Skinner’s numbers have taken a sharp decline but he was good enough to win 15 of the necessary 16 playoff games to win the Stanley Cup last year. Oettinger, Connor Hellebucyk, Adin Hill, and Filip Gustavsson are all either elite goalies or have incredible playoff success.
If the Avalanche are going to win the Stanley Cup this year, they need great goaltending from Mackenzie Blackwood. Nothing he has done in his career says he will definitely do that this spring.
This article first appeared on NHL on ClutchPoints and was syndicated with permission.
