Avalanche Journal: Colorado’s new goalie tandem has zero combined playoff starts. Does that matter?

Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood have completely changed the narrative of the 2024-25 season for the Avalanche.

The Avs had one critical issue they could not control — player availability, stemming from injuries and a suspension — and one they could. That was the goaltending, which languished near the bottom of the NHL rankings in nearly every category.

Enter Wedgewood, then Blackwood 10 days later. Poof, the Avalanche goalie issues are no more.

There is one quirk about the new-look goaltending depth chart in Denver, and it’s not “The Lumberyard” nickname. The Avalanche no longer has a goalie on the roster who has ever started a game in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

This is a team that wants to win 16 playoff games this spring. Does that lack of experience matter?

“No, not at all,” Avs forward Ross Colton said. “These guys have both come in and shown they’re both capable starters. They’ve been great for us. (Wedgewood) on that first road trip, then (Blackwood) kind of got settled, got his feet under him. He’s been great. We’ve got all the confidence in the world in both of them.”

Blackwood has never appeared in a Stanley Cup Playoff game. He has only been on one team that qualified for the tournament, the New Jersey Devils in 2023. The Devils played Vitek Vanacek and Akira Schmid, but not Blackwood, during an 11-game run that ended in the second round.

Wedgewood has never started a playoff contest in his NHL career, but he has appeared in three. He relieved Jake Oettinger three times during the 2023 playoffs while with the Dallas Stars.

He’s faced 29 shots, allowed four goals and played a little more than 105 minutes. The third one, Game 3 of the Western Conference Final against Vegas, was nearly a full night’s work. Oettinger allowed three goals in 7:10 before Wedgewood replaced him and finished the game.

“No one has ever started a Stanley Cup Playoff game until they do it,” Wedgewood said. “You can look at (Sergei) Bobrovsky’s career and he never did it until he did it. Then you see a guy like Matt Murray who won it the first time he got into it. There’s always a story.”

Wedgewood is correct. There’s going to be a narrative, one way or another.

For Bobrovsky, it was all the highs and lows culminating in the ultimate prize. Murray also isn’t alone.

Four times in the past 15 seasons, the Stanley Cup has gone to a team with a goalie who had never participated in the NHL’s tournament before that year. Three of them have been rookies — Antti Niemi in 2010 with Chicago, Murray in 2016 with Pittsburgh and Jordan Binnington in 2019 with St. Louis.

The fourth is the most recent: Adin Hill was more journeyman than up-and-comer when Vegas turned to him two years ago. Here’s a look at the past 15 Cup-winning goalies, and their playoff experience before a run to the title that year.

(Click here to view chart in mobile.)

“You want 10 years of experience, but you need 10 years of work to get it,” Wedgewood said. “I’ve been in playoff games in relief. It’s the same game, just a louder environment. If we get there and there’s a stumble, we’ll have each other’s backs. I think if you put either of us behind this team, the confidence is going to be high.”

Four of the past 15 titles have been a second one for the same guy — Murray, Jonathan Quick, Corey Crawford and Andrei Vasilevskiy. Beyond Murray, even Quick and Crawford were relatively untested in playoff waters before the first breakthrough. Both had played in two playoff series but never won one.

Alexandar Georgiev had zero playoff starts (just two relief appearances) when he signed with the Avalanche in 2022. The Avs did have Pavel Francouz, who won six of the 16 playoff games the year before, as a quality fallback option.

But Georgiev’s play during the 2023 postseason — save for Game 1 in Winnipeg — was excellent. That’s not the reason he’s no longer here.

The Avs could have waited for Georgiev to try and get his game back in order, knowing that he’s been nails in the playoffs before. But thinking that Stanley Cup Playoff experience is super important is not 100% in line with recent history.

Some of the guys on that list have been overvalued later in their careers because they did the thing before.

The Avs decided they had an issue that was too big to ignore. They took bold steps to correct it. Adding Blackwood and Wedgewood has looked like a brilliant stroke of team-building so far.

And the fact that neither member of The Lumberyard has ever led his team out of the tunnel during a Stanley Cup Playoff game is about as far down the list of potential issues for this team as possible.

Especially considering how well they’ve fixed the one at the top of the list.

Avs coach Jared Bednar was emphatic when he was asked if that’s ever mattered during his coaching career.

“No,” Bednar said. “I think what you do throughout the course of the year is what gives you the confidence in your goaltending or not. I think what we’re seeing from these guys we really like, and they’re giving us a chance. We’ve got a lot of hockey to play before playoff time.”

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