Avalanche sign goalie Mackenzie Blackwood to five-year, $26.25 million contract

Corey Masisak, The Denver Post on Dec 27, 2024

Published in Hockey

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SALT LAKE CITY — The Colorado Avalanche didn’t need very long to decide Mackenzie Blackwood is the guy in net for this franchise.

Blackwood signed a five-year contract Friday, the club announced. The deal is for $5.25 million per season, The Denver Post confirmed through a league source.

“Merry Christmas,” Blackwood said. “I’m pretty excited about that. I found out they were offering me a contract around Christmas time and we hashed it out pretty quickly. I’m very excited to be here.”

The Avs traded for Blackwood 18 days ago. They sent previous No. 1 goalie Alexandar Georgiev, Nikolai Kovalenko, a second-round pick in the 2026 NHL draft and a fifth-round pick in 2025 to the Sharks for Blackwood, Givani Smith and a fifth-round pick in 2027.

Blackwood, who turned 28 the day of the trade, has played four games for the club, winning three times and posting a .931 save percentage.

“I think it’s great,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “Obviously our management team did their extensive homework on him and liked what they saw. He’s come in and in a short period of time been as advertised. He kind of solidifies our group, and it’s nice to know he’s going to be around.”

Blackwood was a second-round pick by the New Jersey Devils in 2015. He and current backup goaltender Scott Wedgewood — who was acquired 10 games before him — were teammates together with the Albany Devils in the AHL in 2016-17 and part of the following season, then again with New Jersey from 2020-22.

His time in New Jersey began with great promise but was sidetracked by injuries and inconsistency. The Sharks added him for a sixth-round pick ahead of last season, and he blossomed into a key figure for the club despite plenty of poor play in front of him.

“I got a lot of opportunities to play there … played a lot of hockey and got my game back on track,” Blackwood said. “But at the same time, it’s tough to lose all the time. It’s a different mentality here.

“There, you go into the game hoping to win. Here, you go into the game expecting to win. That’s a nice breath of fresh air.”

Blackwood made an immediate impact with the Avs, stopping 37 of 39 shots in his debut on Dec. 14. He now has a 9-10-3 record and a .914 save percentage this season. Colorado was 30th in the NHL in save percentage the day before Wedgewood arrived. The Avs are eighth since the first of the two trades.

The Avs have cycled through goaltenders in recent years. Georgiev was added to replace Darcy Kuemper, whose one season with the club netted the Stanley Cup before he signed a long-term deal with Washington. Kuemper arrived in place of Philipp Grubauer, who parlayed three successful seasons into a long-term pact with the Seattle Kraken.

Georgiev was in the last year of his three-year contract. Blackwood is the first goalie to sign a contract this long with Colorado since Semyon Varlamov inked a five-year deal in January 2014.

“When we acquired Mackenzie a few weeks ago, we wanted to let him get to Denver, get acclimated to his new team, new city, and then in due time we’d reach out to him and his representatives,” Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland said in a statement. “We are thrilled to get this deal done now and have Mackenzie under contract for the next six years. As I said when we acquired him, we feel like Mackenzie has just gotten better and better every year and he has come in and done a great job with us in his first few starts. He’s a big-body, athletic goaltender who is still young and still growing as a goaltender. Stylistically, he has fit really well with how we play and has been a perfect fit in our dressing room as well.”

With a $5.25 million cap hit, Blackwood is currently slated to be tied for 17th among goalies when the contract kicks in next season. Kuemper signed exactly the same deal (5 years, $5.25 million) when he left Colorado.

Wedgewood is under contract through next season at $1.5 million. The Avs also drafted Ilya Nabokov in the second round of the 2024 draft, and he’s been one of the top goalies in the KHL for the past two seasons.

“Take a look around this room,” Blackwood said. “You notice a lot of players that are really good. It’s a good culture, a good organization. They welcomed me very quickly.

“I just thought, it’s a great opportunity for me. I’m happy to play here and everything’s worked out well.”