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

[Bounces R Way]

HFBoards again really has no concept of how many decent starters there are in this league. There's only 16 goalies with a SV% at or above a .910 that have played more than 10 games. Blackwood is one of them and he's played most of his games for the Sharks.

What else on the goalie FA or trade market has the potential to be a lot better?

 

[BKarchitect]

I just don’t get how Blackwood’s camp had the leverage to get 5 years. His history suggests he’s inconsistent. They must really think he’ll come into his own as he ages.

I mean if you look at the guys at his age - which is still fairly “young” for a goalie…5 years is nothing unusual. Look at Daccord, Jarry, UPL, Merzlikins, Korpisalo, etc.

There are certainly some regrets in there - risk is inherent with every goalie extension or contract. But I think this entire forum needs a huge readjustment in terms of what goalie contracts are going to be, especially with teams, players and agents adjusting for a high rate of cap increase the likes we have never seen before. The Shesty, Swayman and Ullmark deals recently sign should have been a huge sign we are entering a new phase of goalie contracts - but I don’t think most have taken this to heart yet.

This is a pretty bang “average” goalie contract for 2025 and beyond. Blackwood doesn’t need to be a top 10 goalie or anything close to that to “earn” it. I mean, if he’s only the #16 or 17 “ranked” starter in the league, it’ll still may not be enough for the Avs to win. But it potentially gives them a shot.

The thing with 5 years is…yes, you can expect some variance. Which affects almost every starter outside the very, very premium guys.

 

[Romang67]

I mean what’s your definition of mediocre? Among starters of 41+ games last year, he was 16th on GSAX and Sharks fans were more than happy with how he developed. As @shadow1 has pointed out multiple times in this thread, his new contract AAV will be around 17th in the NHL when it kicks in.

Seems about right. If he keeps this year’s play up, it’ll be a bargain. If he “regresses” to last year, it’ll be about what he should make. If he nose dives, it’s shit. Such are goalies.



Yeah…that’s about right. What are you going on about? You do know goalies develop on an entirely different timeline than skaters right?

I don't know this. What timeline do goalies develop on?

 

[Spilot23]

Rather do this than try to outbid a team after the season when Blackwood get good numbers. There's not many goalies that we could get anyway. We lost a first and a good prospect (Timmins) back then when Grubauer decided to sign in Seattle not that I'm mad but we needed a #1 goalie and don't think there was any at that point.

 

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

Which assumption in the expected goals calculations do you disagree with?

Because IMO, they are all fairly reasonable. Again, the assumptions in those calculations are core in the game of hockey.

If you ask a hockey coach what you should do to increase your chances of scoring a goal, they are going to say essentially the same thing as those calculations say will increase your chances of scoring a goal (shoot from a close distance in front of the net instead of from bad angles, crash on rebounds, try to have the puck cross the center of the ice before the shot).

Mostly the assumption that these expected goal calculations are accurate and useful in comparing goalies, when they are nothing more than educated guesses based on probabilities of scoring from different locations, using league averages for the data. The issue is that we can't actually measure the expectations, so there's no way to confirm if any of the various formulas usually produce the correct answer. And the fact that there's multiple different formulas to try to provide the same answer doesn't help my confidence levels either.

Also, your examples of how to increase your scoring chances are example of useful conclusions you can draw from the measurable data that goes into the expected goal calculations. They aren't reasons why GSAx is a reliable measure of which goalie is definitely better than another.

 

[Shane Diesel]

Mostly the assumption that these expected goal calculations are accurate and useful in comparing goalies, when they are nothing more than educated guesses based on probabilities of scoring from different locations, using league averages for the data. The issue is that we can't actually measure the expectations, so there's no way to confirm if any of the various formulas usually produce the correct answer. And the fact that there's multiple different formulas to try to provide the same answer doesn't help my confidence levels either.

Yet you will rely on the anonymous opinions of strangers on the internet as dependable. Bizarre.

 

[Romang67]

Mostly the assumption that these expected goal calculations are accurate and useful in comparing goalies, when they are nothing more than educated guesses based on probabilities of scoring from different locations, using league averages for the data. The issue is that we can't actually measure the expectations, so there's no way to confirm if any of the various formulas usually produce the correct answer. And the fact that there's multiple different formulas to try to provide the same answer doesn't help my confidence levels either.

Also, your examples of how to increase your scoring chances are example of useful conclusions you can draw from the measurable data that goes into the expected goal calculations. They aren't reasons why GSAx is a reliable measure of which goalie is definitely better than another.

That's not an assumption, any more than it's an assumption that one can compare goalies with any metrics. I don't know what you mean by "we can't actually measure the expectations, so there is no way to confirm if any of the various formulas usually produce the correct answer." What would the "correct" answer be?

It seems that you're saying that because there is no definitive "good_goalie" response variable, GSAx is also not a good metric to measure goalie performance with. Because if there were a "good_goalie" variable, you could just see if GSAx is strongly correlated with it, or at least more strongly correlated than traditional metrics.

It might be true that GSAx is a poor proxy for "good_goalie", but saying that it makes fancy calculations and assumptions really just saying there is no way to measure goaltender performance, as metrics such as save percentage, GAA, Wins, etc. are undeniably more flawed, and also have no "good_goalie" to compare to.

I frankly don't see why it would be any worse than the eye test, which is famously poor and enormously subjective. If a goalie plays well according to a person, and it produces no tangible evidence, then that eye test is really just vibes.

 

[Mad Dog Tannen]

I don't know this. What timeline do goalies develop on?

Everyone knows goalies need a decade after drafting to ripen on the vine romang. Lol.

 

[lakeshirts37]

I mean what’s your definition of mediocre? Among starters of 41+ games last year, he was 16th on GSAX and Sharks fans were more than happy with how he developed. As @shadow1 has pointed out multiple times in this thread, his new contract AAV will be around 17th in the NHL when it kicks in.

Seems about right. If he keeps this year’s play up, it’ll be a bargain. If he “regresses” to last year, it’ll be about what he should make. If he nose dives, it’s shit. Such are goalies.



Yeah…that’s about right. What are you going on about? You do know goalies develop on an entirely different timeline than skaters right?

Sure bud

 

[JKG33]

I'm seeing a fair bit of this. What is it based on? Where are the examples of single seasons of good goaltending in your late 20s resulting in top 10 contracts in the league?

I mean yea if you believe this would be Blackwood's single season of "good" goaltending then you'd have a point.

The reality is Blackwood was on a crazy good trajectory on NJ, that was derailed due to some covid bullshit and a few tough injuries. The player and the team got a much needed divorce, and Blackwood returned to form on a dogshit San Jose team.

Blackwoods track record, in addition to a half season of dominating on the first good team he's been apart of in his NHL career, would absolutely get him paid even bigger money.

 

[JKG33]

If we're now living in a world where goalies like Daccord and Blackwood are getting paid $5 million + per year and 5 year deals? Hoo boy, it could get ugly.

I can't wait to see what the Oilers give bum ass Skinner when his deal is up. And him and his agent will even use the ''I got them to game 7 of the finals tho!'' despite his miserable play those playoffs, and leaving Edmonton for dead a couple of times in the earlier rounds.

There are a lot of bad goalie contracts in the league. Korpisalo, Merzlikins, Husso, Jarry, Georgiev, Grubauer.. the fact that you picked out Daccord and Blackwood means you don't have a clue what you're talking about here.

Of course Edmonton will give Skinner a bad contract - not because they’re dumb, but because there’ll be no options. When even mid goalies like Daccord and Blackwood are pre-emptively removed from the UFA market … summer becomes a boring game of musical chairs “oh look, there’s one chair and one goalie with any starter history”. Skinner will get paid because there’ll be nobody out there that’s any better. Which is saying more about the market than it does about Skinner.

If that's your definition of mid...

 

[Bleedred]

There are a lot of bad goalie contracts in the league. Korpisalo, Merzlikins, Husso, Jarry, Georgiev, Grubauer.. the fact that you picked out Daccord and Blackwood means you don't have a clue what you're talking about here.

Because those are the two very recent big contracts given out to very unproven goalies.

 

[Romang67]

I mean yea if you believe this would be Blackwood's single season of "good" goaltending then you'd have a point.

The reality is Blackwood was on a crazy good trajectory on NJ, that was derailed due to some covid bullshit and a few tough injuries. The player and the team got a much needed divorce, and Blackwood returned to form on a dogshit San Jose team.

Blackwoods track record, in addition to a half season of dominating on the first good team he's been apart of in his NHL career, would absolutely get him paid even bigger money.

Based on what? You didn't actually answer my question, you just said that Blackwood was considered an up-and-coming goalie 5+ years ago.

 

[JKG33]

Because those are the two very recent big contracts given out to very unproven goalies.

They've proven a lot more than the guys I listed did.

Based on what? You didn't actually answer my question, you just said that Blackwood was considered an up-and-coming goalie 5+ years ago.

Re-read my post. Blackwood wasn't just a good prospect, he had a great first few years in NJ before covid and the injuries hit. He regained form in SJ. I'm not sure what more you want here

 

[Romang67]

They've proven a lot more than the guys I listed did.


Re-read my post. Blackwood wasn't just a good prospect, he had a great first few years in NJ before covid and the injuries hit. He regained form in SJ. I'm not sure what more you want here

I'd like to see an example of a goalie getting paid top 10 money in the league with anything similar to Blackwood's trajectory.

I'm not sure what's so difficult to understand here. You're making the claim that the Avs are trying to avoid paying Blackwood like a top 10 goalie in the league. I'm asking for some supporting evidence that Blackwood could command that kind of salary.

Claiming that he'll make it because he was good before COVID and injuries isn't supporting evidence. It's conjecture.

 

[Reality Czech]

Binnington career save % .907

Blackwood career save % .905

Kuemper career save % .914 and .921 with the Avs.

Varlamov save % with the Avs was consistently above .907

He's barely put up better numbers than the goalie everyone in this thread is bashing while spending time on a cup competing team.

Ffs even Grubauer has a better career save %

Binnington also makes 750,000 more per year than the contract everyone is shitting on.

Save %? Cute

 

[JKG33]

I'd like to see an example of a goalie getting paid top 10 money in the league with anything similar to Blackwood's trajectory.

I'm not sure what's so difficult to understand here. You're making the claim that the Avs are trying to avoid paying Blackwood like a top 10 goalie in the league. I'm asking for some supporting evidence that Blackwood could command that kind of salary.

Claiming that he'll make it because he was good before COVID and injuries isn't supporting evidence. It's conjecture.

I'll reiterate what I said earlier, where if you don't think Blackwood has more than 1 good season, we're never going to agree on an appropriate contract, since we see the player very differently.

To start, Gibson and Andersen both got paid after Anaheim picked Gibson, when neither had accomplished all that much beyond splitting time with the other.

Hill and Binnington got paid off the backs of a cup win.

Grubauer and Keumper rode the coat tails of a great Avs team to a large contract.

Dime a dozen backups like Campbell, Husso, Merzlikins, Korpisalo, and many others have recived varying large pay days after being 1B's at best.

Also "top 10 goalie" are your words not mine. I said around $7m, which is very close to what all those goalies I just listed would've had under next year's cap relative to the year they signed.

 

[Petes2424]

This is literally the first goaltender the Avs have paid more than $5 million per year since Varlamov. What are you talking about?

Sorry.. $3.5. Lol.. Same point. Same class of goaltenders they’ve given term to, cutting corners.

Nobody can sit here with any confidence, and call this anything but what it is. They’re taking a BIG chance on someone who’s had some issues keeping his head screwed on straight.

It’s a choice teams make NOT to pay big money in net, and Colorado has made the choice, they’d rather spend cap in other areas. That’s fine, that’s great, many teams do it. They don’t hand out term to hopefuls though. They sign bridge deals to their own, give prove it deals, sign Cam Talbot types for a year or two, or trade for a Kuemper and then don't reward him when his contract is due.

To hand Blackwood this deal after 5 games?? You’re just asking for problems. He’s 28 and he’s been a sub 900 goalie most of his career. Why such a hurry? Are they that shell shocked? Goalies like Alex Lyon are smiling tonight as they prepare for free agency.

If you don’t think these are fair comments, not sure what to tell you. It’s exactly what most people are thinking. Including a lot of Colorado fans.

 

[Romang67]

I'll reiterate what I said earlier, where if you don't think Blackwood has more than 1 good season, we're never going to agree on an appropriate contract, since we see the player very differently.

To start, Gibson and Andersen both got paid after Anaheim picked Gibson, when neither had accomplished all that much beyond splitting time with the other.

Hill and Binnington got paid off the backs of a cup win.

Grubauer and Keumper rode the coat tails of a great Avs team to a large contract.

Dime a dozen backups like Campbell, Husso, Merzlikins, Korpisalo, and many others have recived varying large pay days after being 1B's at best.

Also "top 10 goalie" are your words not mine. I said around $7m, which is very close to what all those goalies I just listed would've had under next year's cap relative to the year they signed.

Gibson and Andersen got paid off multiple years of high level play immediately preceeding their contracts. Nothing like the Blackwood situation.

Hill got a 2 year contract with a lower AAV than Blackwood just got, so not comparable. Same with Binnington. This was also, as you said, following cup wins, indicating that the Avs would not be stuck with a top 10 goalie contract even if Blackwood had done exceptionally well this year.

Grubauer and Kuemper had years of good performance immediately preceeding their contracts. Not in any way comparable to the Blackwood situation.

These aren't supporting examples. They are examples of goalies with history of high performance for several years before signing a contract getting paid well, and goalies with great career years but nothing before not being paid well.

Jack Campbell is the only somewhat decent comparison, and he got paid the same as the 14th-19th highest paid goalies in the league. You're suggesting that Blackwood will be paid almost $2M AAV more than that group of goalie does next year.

You said $7M contract. That would give Blackwood the 10th highest paid goalie in the league next season. Not sure why you take umbrage with that description of the potential contract, as it ignores cap inflation.

I'm seeing no evidence that teams would go out and give Blackwood a contract anywhere near $7M per year.

 

[BKarchitect]

Sorry.. $3.5. Lol.. Same point. Same class of goaltenders they’ve given term to, cutting corners.

Nobody can sit here with any confidence, and call this anything but what it is. They’re taking a BIG chance on someone who’s had some issues keeping his head screwed on straight.

It’s a choice teams make NOT to pay big money in net, and Colorado has made the choice, they’d rather spend cap in other areas. That’s fine, that’s great, many teams do it. They don’t hand out term to hopefuls though. They sign bridge deals to their own, give prove it deals, sign Cam Talbot types for a year or two, or trade for a Kuemper and then don't reward him when his contract is due.

To hand Blackwood this deal after 5 games?? You’re just asking for problems. He’s 28 and he’s been a sub 900 goalie most of his career. Why such a hurry? Are they that shell shocked? Goalies like Alex Lyon are smiling tonight as they prepare for free agency.

If you don’t think these are fair comments, not sure what to tell you. It’s exactly what most people are thinking. Including a lot of Colorado fans.

It’s complete lunacy that you think that the Avs are handing Blackwood this contract on the back of 5 games. That’s not how pro scouting works. If you don’t think there was a massive amount of discussions between Sakic, McFarland and the pro scouting staff prior to the acquisition of Blackwood of why he is in fact a target and what keeping him past 5 months would look like, you’ve got your head in the sand. You got called out for a factually incorrect statement based on your feels.

Spouting out career SV% with it looking at context and trajectory is meaningless. Alex Lyon is 4 years older and has 94 career starts. Every situation deserves its own fine toothed evaluation. And yeah, maybe Lyon does deserve a hefty contract this off-season. You know Stolarz is going to get one. Sometimes goalies just become good/effective later than is to be expected.

Nobody can have any confidence in any goalie contract these days, given the reaction to the Swayman, Ullmark and Shesty deals. All you can do is evaluate the specifics of each situation and rely on some combination of pro scouting, analytics, trajectory and history. Those all say this is a pretty “ok” bet at worst. Of course it has inherent risk. I’m not sure why that has to overwhelm everything else.

 

[JKG33]

Gibson and Andersen got paid off multiple years of high level play immediately preceeding their contracts. Nothing like the Blackwood situation.

Hill got a 2 year contract with a lower AAV than Blackwood just got, so not comparable. Same with Binnington. This was also, as you said, following cup wins, indicating that the Avs would not be stuck with a top 10 goalie contract even if Blackwood had done exceptionally well this year.

Grubauer and Kuemper had years of good performance immediately preceeding their contracts. Not in any way comparable to the Blackwood situation.

These aren't supporting examples. They are examples of goalies with history of high performance for several years before signing a contract getting paid well, and goalies with great career years but nothing before not being paid well.

Jack Campbell is the only somewhat decent comparison, and he got paid the same as the 14th-19th highest paid goalies in the league. You're suggesting that Blackwood will be paid almost $2M AAV more than that group of goalie does next year.

You said $7M contract. That would give Blackwood the 10th highest paid goalie in the league next season. Not sure why you take umbrage with that description of the potential contract, as it ignores cap inflation.

I'm seeing no evidence that teams would go out and give Blackwood a contract anywhere near $7M per year.

The part that you're conveniently ignoring, is that while all of those contracts were in the $5m range at the time of signing, pretty much all of them would be close to $7m in terms of percentage of cap relative to 2025's cap.

Also lol at Keumper and Grubauer's "years of high level of play" then shitting the bed immediately on their new teams

 

[Peter Griffin]

I mean what’s your definition of mediocre?

Average, which is exactly what he was and those numbers indicate.

Among starters of 41+ games last year, he was 16th on GSAX and Sharks fans were more than happy with how he developed. As @shadow1 has pointed out multiple times in this thread, his new contract AAV will be around 17th in the NHL when it kicks in.

Seems about right. If he keeps this year’s play up, it’ll be a bargain. If he “regresses” to last year, it’ll be about what he should make. If he nose dives, it’s shit. Such are goalies.

Yes if he continues his play this year, then it’s great for the Avs. Just seems really premature to make this commitment after 4 games but they must really like what they see and/or scared he’ll price himself out.

 

[Romang67]

The part that you're conveniently ignoring, is that while all of those contracts were in the $5m range at the time of signing, pretty much all of them would be close to $7m in terms of percentage of cap relative to 2025's cap.

Also lol at Keumper and Grubauer's "years of high level of play" then shitting the bed immediately on their new teams.

I'm sorry, you do realize that $7M is 40% more than $5M, right? I'm not ignoring it. I'm not saying it because it's incorrect. The salary cap when those goalies signed their $5M contracts wasn't $65M, unless they signed it before the 2013-14 season.

Unless the Avs get the luxury of deciding what Blackwood's contract should be a year into his new contract, I don't see how performance after contract signing is relevant to the discussion.

 

[JKG33]

I'm sorry, you do realize that $7M is 40% more than $5M, right? I'm not ignoring it. I'm not saying it because it's incorrect. The salary cap when those goalies signed their $5M contracts wasn't $65M, unless they signed it before the 2013-14 season.

Unless the Avs get the luxury of deciding what Blackwood's contract should be a year into his new contract, I don't see how performance after contract signing is relevant to the discussion.

Admittedly the cap hasnt jumped as much as i thought. But some of these goalies worse than Blackwood (the 1B types) who got $5m (or more) a few years ago would be around $6m under next year's cap. So Blackwood, a much better goalie, could certainly command $7m.

Performance after contract in the case of Grubauer and Kuemper is relevant, when you claim they're good goalies (who just happened to he playing on a wagon of a team), because that claim is pretty easily disproven when you look at how their play went to shit being away from the great team. Georgiev also looked great behind that defence until the D unit fell off and Georgiev got exposed

 

[12ozPapa]

I have to assume they are hoping for Blackwood to be stable, not stealing games.