Avalanche may have handed out NHL’s next regrettable goalie contract

It was only two weeks ago that the Colorado Avalanche made a trade with the San Jose Sharks to acquire goalie Mackenzie Blackwood to help overhaul their goalie situation. 

Goaltending was the clear weakness of the roster in the first two months of the season, and management wasted little time in trying to fix it. 

They also wasted little time in making sure that Blackwood is going to be their goalie for the foreseeable future, signing him to a five-year, $26.25M contract extension on Friday after making just four starts with the team.

It is a massively risky contract and there is no guarantee it is going to work out the way the Avalanche hope it will. 

There is also a very real chance it could be the next regrettable contract handed out by a team to a mid-level goalie. 

Goaltending is a tricky position for NHL teams because it is the most impactful position on the ice. A great goalie can elevate a mediocre team into a contender, while a poor goaltending performance can take a contender and turn into a pretender. What makes it so maddening is that for all of its importance, it is also one of the most difficult positions to project in terms of performance. There are only a handful of goalies that you can count on for high-level play year after year. There is an element of randomness and unpredictability with the second- and third-tier goalies, and that is the level that Blackwood falls into.

He showed flashes of being a good starter earlier in his career when he first entered the league with the New Jersey Devils, but was a below-average starter for four consecutive seasons between 2020-21 and 2023-24. 

He has been significantly better so far this season, and between the Sharks and Avalanche, his .914 save percentage is seventh in the NHL out of 37 goalies that have appeared in at least 15 games.

If he maintains that level of play, his new contract is probably a bargain for the Avalanche. But there is no guarantee he does that given his track record.

Maybe playing behind a strong Avalanche team with a great defense and plenty of offensive goal support will help him and bring out the best in him. The supporting cast around him certainly puts him into a position where he does not have to be the focal point of the roster. The Avalanche do not need a goalie that can steal them games. They just need somebody who is solid and does not lose them games the way Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen were early in the season. 

But these five-year goalie contracts in the $25M-30M range do not typically turn out well for the teams that hand them out. That is the same salary range that players like Tristan Jarry (Pittsburgh), Joonas Korpisalo (Ottawa), Elvis Merzlikins (Columbus), Jack Campbell (Edmonton), Darcy Kuemper (Washington), and Philipp Grubauer (Seattle) have signed in recent years. Almost all of them were clear losses for the team within a couple of years. In the case of Korpisalo, Campbell and Kuemper, they were traded away from their teams or waived within two years of signing the deals, while Jarry and Merzlikins have been among the least productive starters in the league. Grubauer lost his starting job in Seattle. 

Given Blackwood’s inconsistent track record throughout his career, there is a very good chance the Avalanche find themselves in a similar position in a couple of years. It is simply a risky contract.