Question from Rudy Volz<\/p>\n
Why couldn\u2019t Mackenzie Blackwood hold the starting job? Does missing camp make that much of a difference across a whole season? Is he still hurt or does he have the yips? If he can\u2019t be the starter, do they trade him, given the other goalies we have in the pipeline?<\/p>\n
Aarif\u2019s Response<\/p>\n
Starting from the last part of that question, I think the way things unfold this upcoming season will determine the future of a lot of goaltending pieces. If we see what we saw a year ago, I could see Colorado keeping Scott Wedgewood for at least another year, and potentially moving on from Blackwood altogether. At that point, you\u2019d have to at least have an idea of what Ilya Nabokov is and could become, otherwise you\u2019ll definitely need to bring in someone else to share the crease with Wedgewood. You can\u2019t put that much pressure on the kid.<\/p>\n
I do think they\u2019re going to give Blackwood every chance to be the guy before they consider a move. Blackwood had an excellent run in 2024-25 after the Avalanche acquired him, and it was a huge step in the right direction with regard to him being a permanent starting goalie.<\/p>\n
For a guy who was still trying to solidify that role, I think missing camp had a far greater effect on him than it would\u2019ve for, say, someone like Connor Hellebuyck or any other established goalie. It\u2019s not just the physical part of missing camp, but it\u2019s also the mental focus and preparation. It definitely felt to me like he had a bit of a case of the yips after the Olympic break. Jared Bednar tried to give him every opportunity to be the guy for the playoffs, but Blackwood couldn\u2019t hold it down.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s see how he responds this upcoming season. I have a lot of confidence in him, especially with the message he sent with his Game 4 performance and the postgame presser he had after the fact in the Western Conference Final. He wants it. <\/p>\n
Question from Rudy Volz<\/p>\n
Will Cale Makar need surgery in the off-season to fix whatever he injured vs Minnesota? It looked like a shoulder\u2026shoulders are tough to fix and stay fixed. Will his injuries affect his negotiations?<\/p>\n
Aarif\u2019s Response<\/p>\n
There was no confirmation from Joe Sakic that Cale Makar\u2019s injury was a shoulder injury, but he said something along the lines of \u201cwe all know the injuries\u201d when asked about him. So, it seems safe to say it was a shoulder.<\/p>\n
Sakic was asked about this when we chatted with him a month ago, and he made it clear that he expects everyone to be healthy and ready to go for training camp. He didn\u2019t specify if there were going to be any offseason surgeries, but if Makar needed one, the team would\u2019ve let us know. They announce those things pretty regularly.<\/p>\n
Basically, I wouldn\u2019t be too stressed about his injury. He\u2019ll be ready to go in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Question from Rudy Volz Why couldn\u2019t Mackenzie Blackwood hold the starting job? Does missing camp make that much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[69843,1223,6522,385,99],"class_list":["post-757884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-cale-makar","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-mackenzie-blackwood","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}