Confirmed Signing with Link: [COL] G Mackenzie Blackwood signs extension with the Avalanche (5 years, $5.25M AAV)

[Arthur Morgan]

He's 100% the best goalie we've had since Varlamov.

Good move to get this done early. Wait longer and his value will almost certainly have gone up.

or it drops because Blackwood really isn't that good

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

Honestly, if the Avs went 3+ rounds in the playoffs this year, would the number have been any higher?

Who was going to pay him more in the offseason?

 

[JLo217]

That's because they play in too many fantasy leagues.


Ok?

Yup. It's clear most of these fans haven't watched Blackwood on the Sharks. I live out here and have seen him play a good amount. I think he's the real deal personally. Everyone is open to their own opinion.

This is the largest issue. Most fans haven't really seen him play and live in their singular game experience. I think fans need to look at the AAV of most goalies putting up Blackwood's numbers.

The only posters i'll trust in this thread is Sharks fans, or fans in the pacific who have seen him play. Also fans need to realize the price would've been more expensive in the summer, and then the Avs would be using assets to get another option in net. It's a gamble, but IMO it's a low risk one.

Overall, I think Blackwood is really important the next 2-3 seasons. After that the Avs window isn't going to look as good as it does now. No body will care if the Avs get to the finals or win the cup again.

 

[Romang67]

Yup. It's clear most of these fans haven't watched Blackwood on the Sharks. I live out here and have seen him play a good amount. I think he's the real deal personally. Everyone is open to their own opinion.

This is the largest issue. Most fans haven't really seen him play and live in their singular game experience. I think fans need to look at the AAV of most goalies putting up Blackwood's numbers.

The only posters i'll trust in this thread is Sharks fans, or fans in the pacific who have seen him play.

Over the last few seasons, or exclusively this season?

 

[Rebels57]

What a stupid league

 

[Arthur Morgan]

give it a year or even by the end of the season before Avs regret this. Blackwood isnt that good and if he was NJ and then SJ likely wouldn't have moved on from him but acquiring him was fine, but extending him 5x5.25m is worse than signing Jack Campbell

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

Yup. It's clear most of these fans haven't watched Blackwood on the Sharks. I live out here and have seen him play a good amount. I think he's the real deal personally. Everyone is open to their own opinion.

This is the largest issue. Most fans haven't really seen him play and live in their singular game experience. I think fans need to look at the AAV of most goalies putting up Blackwood's numbers.

The only posters i'll trust in this thread is Sharks fans, or fans in the pacific who have seen him play. Also fans need to realize the price would've been more expensive in the summer, and then the Avs would be using assets to get another option in net. It's a gamble, but IMO it's a low risk one.

Overall, I think Blackwood is really important the next 2-3 seasons. After that the Avs window isn't going to look as good as it does now. No body will care if the Avs get to the finals or win the cup again.

He spent most of his career in NJ (5 years) wouldn't you trust their opinion also?

 

[featherhawk]

Happy to read this news as it relates to McKenzie, way to go! You stuck it out through tough times and low and behold you find yourself as the Starter for Joe Sakic's club! YES.

Congratulations from one of your extended Finnish family members! Congrats McKenzie, super proud of you! SISU / SUOMI!

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

The Avs should have backed out and done their own research before offering Blackwood this deal.

We were desperate

 

[JLo217]

Over the last few seasons, or exclusively this season?

Either or. Does it matter? Blackwood will be the 15th highest paid goaltender going into next season. For a starter this is a great place for the Avs to have a starting goalie. He's getting paid as much as Kuemper and is a better goalie. Heck... Binnington makes more, and Lehner is/was getting 250k less...

 

[Romang67]

Did the Avs clean house in their pro scouting department recently? Because otherwise I'm not sure the argument "the Avs scouted this guy for quite some time before deciding he was their guy" holds water given their goaltending decisions post Varlamov.

 

[Bubbles]

I've always liked the Avs system of rent a goalies. Just toss them aside when they get bad. Pick up a scrap off the waiver wire or a European goalie and let him make a run.


Clearly went with a different model now.

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

This deal could prove to be an absolute steal or an absolute joke.

Clearly a lot of people are betting on the latter, but I think way too many people are still downplaying Blackwood’s time in SJ playing around a rebuilding team.

Huge dice roll by Avs management.

Yeah it's a gamble. Top-tier goaltender is 8-11mil these days.

 

[Richard88]

5 x 5.25 for a waiver wire goalie after 4 good games? This is one of the more insane contracts I've seen. It's like the Avs are somehow blessed with a great team but on the condition they have to make exclusively bad goalie decisions.

Sticking with Georgiev and Annunen last offseason was definitely an awful decision, but it's quite hyperbolic to say that they make "exclusively bad goalie decisions".

First of all, though it was a mistake to persist with Georgiev as long as they did (and many Avs fans wanted him traded already last off season), they did at least make the ballsy decision to completely overhaul their goaltending prior to January, which doesn't happen very often. They made a mistake but acted swiftly to correct it. So a bad decision turned into a solid solution.

Going back further, the decision to go with a cheaper tandem of Grubauer/Francouz and later Kuemper/Francouz clearly paid off with a cup win, with the $5m total spent in net allowing them to stack the rest of the roster. Walking away from Grubauer ($5.9m x 6) and Kuemper ($5.5m x 5) also proved to be good decisions, even if going with Georgiev turned out to be not so stellar a couple of years later.

The Avs do seem to have found some stability in net now, and have Nabokov in the pipeline, but we'll see how things play out.

 

[EXTRAS]

Grubauer and Kuemper both got massive paydays after having their numbers pumped playing for this team. Georgiev also had his numbers pumped for the first year or so. More than likely Blackwood would have posted good numbers behind this team too to earn a big payday as by far the best UFA goalie on the market.

Bad comparisons. Grubauer had just won a cup with washington and had even better numbers in washington than in colorado. Kuemper had pretty stellar numbers in arizona before coming to Colorado.

Blackwood has been close to waiver fodder for a few years.

 

[tucker3434]

Honestly, if the Avs went 3+ rounds in the playoffs this year, would the number have been any higher?

Who was going to pay him more in the offseason?

Happened for both Grubauer and Kuemper. Georgiev aside, the Avs usually make goalies look good, at least in the regular season.

 

[Romang67]

Either or. Does it matter? Blackwood will be the 15th highest paid goaltender going into next season. For a starter this is a great place for the Avs to have a starting goalie. He's getting paid as much as Kuemper and is a better goalie. Heck... Binnington makes more, and Lehner is/was getting 250k less...

Does it matter if we include the last few seasons, where his GSAx has hovered around 0?

Yes, I'd say that matters when we're talking about which goalies' AAV his should be compared to.

His GSAx is 16th in the league this season. It was 33nd the season before, and 66th the season before that. 108th the season before that.

 

[Muffin]

It’s pretty obvious no one watched him in San Jose. It’s ok no one is going to blame you for not staying up to watch the worst team in the league.

 

[Richard88]

The full story is that the Devils weren’t going to tender him a qualifying offer (he was fourth in a bad pecking order, after Vanecek Schmid Daws) so they traded those rights because a 6th is better than nothing.

San Jose proceeded to also not even tender him a qualifying offer. This man was an unrestricted free agent on July 1 of last year, because he had so little value San Jose was willing to let him walk to try to get him to sign to a pay cut less than his QO. And it worked. No other team wanted him so San Jose was, in fact, able to get him to sign a contract worth less aav than his QO would have been. They dared him to go out and play musical chairs and then he came back through the doggy door when he found there were no better chairs.

So to even say his rights were traded for a 6th is an overstatement. San Jose traded for and then immediately forfeited rfa rights to him and then got him at a discount as a ufa. And an .899 half-tandem season later he was suddenly a hot commodity.

That's fair. Thanks for outlining that history.

 

[JLo217]

He spent most of his career in NJ (5 years) wouldn't you trust their opinion also?

To some degree. But people and players change.

 

[LOFIN]

Georgiev was .918 his first year with Colorado. I even remember Colorado fans saying they got the best goalie from New York lmao. They are the same age and have the same stats 0.906 vs 0.905

That was a sarcastic joke, did someone actually take that for real?

Georgiev was good on his first year and Avs fans were happy they got him from New York, but at no point did anyone have the illusion that he was actually better than Shesterkin. His numbers looked better at times because Colorado has been a much better team than Rangers.

 

[TheBeard]

Yup. It's clear most of these fans haven't watched Blackwood on the Sharks. I live out here and have seen him play a good amount. I think he's the real deal personally. Everyone is open to their own opinion.

This is the largest issue. Most fans haven't really seen him play and live in their singular game experience. I think fans need to look at the AAV of most goalies putting up Blackwood's numbers.

The only posters i'll trust in this thread is Sharks fans, or fans in the pacific who have seen him play. Also fans need to realize the price would've been more expensive in the summer, and then the Avs would be using assets to get another option in net. It's a gamble, but IMO it's a low risk one.

Overall, I think Blackwood is really important the next 2-3 seasons. After that the Avs window isn't going to look as good as it does now. No body will care if the Avs get to the finals or win the cup again.

Not to mention if they plan on making a serious run this year, not having to worry about that (for the organization and for Mac) probably helps.

or it drops because Blackwood really isn't that good

I trust him more than i trust Hellebuyck come playoff time.

 

[DeltaSwede]

No reason? Hardly.

If Blackwood continues to do well this year and in the playoffs is UFA pricetag would certainly be considerably higher than this, especially with the UFA goalie market being so bleak this coming offseason.

Moreover, having cost certainty in net for the foreseeable future gives the Avs the clarity they need with a massive contract with Rantanen to get done in the next few months. Not to mention other parts like Malinski, Drouin, and Kiviranta who they may also want to bring back.

Given the massive sample size of 4 games, his career totals, his lack of consistency, and the price tag attached to a 5 year deal - I think citing cost certainty is ridiculous. Makes no sense at all if that "cost certainty" ends up being an anchor, which is entirely possible given what I mentioned above.

Blackwood and his team have no negotiating power at this point and have found themselves in the best possible situation so far in his career - Yet, they seemingly bent over the Avs here somehow and signing a 5 year deal after playing 4 total games for the team. 5 years for 4 hours on the job.

What if he doesn't continue to do well? Can make the same argument but instead wasting 5,25 mil of that precious cap to re-sign Rantanen, Malinski, Drouin and Kiviranta. You're stuck with it for 5 years. That's after doing the same thing with Grubauer and Georgiev before Blackwood and suffering for it.

Other than coping or heavy homerism, there is absolutely no argument for rushing this deal. Another poster said the cap would be 6 mil if they left it to the end of the season if he continues to deliver well above his career average. You're really willing to take that risk of rushing this deal for a measily 750k? that's a league min call-up player penciled off your roster. You're in the same city as your farm team.

If he get's worse, Blackwood and his team would still be interested in signing with the Avs (playoffs, cup etc) and hey ho whattaaaayaaa know you sign him to a cheaper deal. Wowzer.

Blackwood is on par with about 5-6 of the guys that will be available in FA this year-

 

[TheBeard]

Bad comparisons. Grubauer had just won a cup with washington and had even better numbers in washington than in colorado. Kuemper had pretty stellar numbers in arizona before coming to Colorado.

Blackwood has been close to waiver fodder for a few years.

Yet apparently there was a market for him?

 

[LOFIN]

Honestly, if the Avs went 3+ rounds in the playoffs this year, would the number have been any higher?

Who was going to pay him more in the offseason?

Look at what guys like Campbell, Husso and Korpisalo got in free agency recently.

Would someone offer more than this to Blackwood if he takes the Avs for a run? Yes, absolutely.