Avs make huge addition in net with Mackenzie Blackwood

The Colorado Avalanche showed they are not interested in waiting around any longer for Alexandar Georgiev to find his game again as they made a big splash today. The Avs made the biggest move of the current NHL season so far when they acquired goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood from the San Jose Sharks.

The full trade shakes out to:

COLORADO GETS:

G Mackenzie Blackwood
F Givani Smith
2027 5th round pick

SAN JOSE GETS:

G Alexandar Georgiev
F Nikolai Kovalenko
2025 5th round pick
2026 2nd round pick

What are the Avs getting in Blackwood?

As much as you can argue that this deal begins with what the Avs are giving up in Georgiev, the addition of Blackwood means the Avalanche might have landed their goaltender of the present and future in this trade.

Blackwood, who turned 28 today (hell of a birthday present), was once considered the savior in net when he was drafted by the New Jersey Devils in the second round of the 2015 NHL Draft.

Blackwood showed a ton of promise early in his NHL career with two great seasons to start his career and then began to struggle with injuries and confidence. There was also this:

Ultimately, the Devils decided their rebuild was over and tried finding different solutions at the positions. That landed Blackwood in San Jose as the Sharks were knee-deep in their rebuild.

That freedom to rebuild his game meant that he wasn’t under the same kind of pressure he was in New Jersey and that helped his game take a leap this season.

The numbers won’t blow you away over the last few years as Blackwood had a .899 save percentage in 44 appearances last year but he has taken his game to a different level, posting a .909 save percentage behind a terrible Sharks defense. This is the group Blackwood was playing behind.

That means the Sharks are defensively 13% worse than a league-average team.

This is the team he is moving to:

If Blackwood can maintain the high level of play he has set in Colorado to start the year, the Avs will be getting a gigantic upgrade in net and regain their status as one of the Western Conference’s top contenders to play for the Stanley Cup this season.

This is the guy they are getting:

This is the guy they had:

Whether it be stylistic fit or confidence or whatever, the fit between Georgiev and the Avalanche stopped working to a catastrophic degree.

Blackwood isn’t a high-end starter right now but has long had the tools to get there. His work with the Sharks this year makes it easier to believe he was starting to unlock his vast potential, but let’s be real and admit that when a player is 28 years old and we’re still talking about their “potential”, it’s because things have not gone well across their career.

Was the cost palatable for the Avalanche?

It depends on who you ask, I suppose.

To me, a second-round pick in 2026 and a bottom-nine forward in Kovalenko is both pricey and fair. The Sharks make out well here because it fits their organizational goals. They’re going to be in sell mode a lot more in the run-up to the trade deadline in March as they look to add draft picks and young players.

San Jose paid a heavy price for Yaroslav Askarov and signed him to a two-year extension this past summer, so Blackwood was on borrowed time with the Sharks.

As much as Kovalenko was solid for the Avalanche, it was also obvious that his defensive deficiencies were putting him lower on the pecking order than Joel Kiviranta and Ivan Ivan. Kovalenko’s ice time has gone from 13:48 in October to 11:09 in November and down to 9:23 in only three games in December.

I know there have been a lot of moving parts to Colorado’s forwards this year, but that’s a noticeable trend in the wrong direction.

In San Jose, he will get more minutes to show some of the offensive prowess we saw glimpses of in Colorado. Despite being a rookie, he is already 25 the Avs are locked in several of their role players long term (Miles Wood, Logan O’Connor) while he had been outplayed by Ivan and Kiviranta so far this year.

Finding a spot for Kovalenko this year was already tough, but finding one next season might be even tougher when Cal Ritchie takes another shot at making the Avalanche roster.

In the end, it didn’t necessarily make Kovalenko expendable, but not a player they will have trouble replacing. This isn’t the same as Andre Burakovsky or Evan Rodrigues leaving in free agency.

The draft pick compensation isn’t really a problem. A 2026 second and 2025 fifth aren’t the kinds of assets that should cause a deal to not happen when you’re talking about the potential of landing a starting goaltender.

Is Blackwood the man in Colorado now?

With Scott Wedgewood off to such a solid start as an Av, I don’t think there will be a rush to force Blackwood into the starter’s job, but you do want to see him eventually take it. Again, he just turned 28 so this should be when he’s about to play the best hockey of his career. So far this year, that has been true.

If that continues, Blackwood is a free agent at the end of the season and the Avs will have to look into trying to keep him. It’s tough to tell what the expectations for a contract extension should be because we have no idea how well he will play.

If the Avs hit a grand slam and get a run similar to what Vegas got out of Adin Hill, using his two-year, $4.9M annual average value deal would be a good place to start. If things go sideways, they could always choose to walk away from Blackwood entirely and this trade goes down as a disaster.

That’s the nature of gambling on goaltending.

The Avs needed this

This is part of the conversation that I wanted to make sure I touched on.

The Colorado Avalanche badly needed a reset at the position. Georgiev and Justus Annunen were sinking what was an otherwise solid team.

You could see how the team on the ice slumped when another easy goal went in. All of the work that goes into scoring goals in the NHL, all of the superhuman things we’ve seen from Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar, it was all regularly being undone by ghastly goaltending.

In a span of just under two weeks, the Avs remade the entire position. They brought in Wedgewood, a tried-and-true solid backup whose jovial personality brings levity to a locker room, and now Blackwood, whose personality I know nothing about (just being honest).

Annunen was a quiet, shy type and Georgiev also kept to himself except when he was erupting with fury after fishing another puck from his net. There is something to be said for them bringing in different personalities into the locker room as well as getting goaltenders who might be a better fit for how they defend and the chances they allow.

Goaltending is the ultimate “wait and see” position, but if the Avs got it right with Blackwood, I don’t think there will be a lot of negative feelings about the price involved. Colorado’s biggest weakness is now arguably back to center depth or, without Kovalenko, I guess wing depth becomes a louder conversation.

I’d probably prefer another depth defenseman over another wing, but there’s still a lot of hockey to be played between now and the trade deadline. Either way, this is a big move from Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland. Remember in “Happy Gilmore” when he finally learns how to putt? That’s what today’s Avs deal felt like.