The trade
Avalanche get: Goalie Mackenzie Blackwood, forward Givani Smith, 5th-round pick in 2027.
Sharks get: Goalie Alexandar Georgiev, forward Nikolai Kovalenko, 2nd-round pick in 2026, 5th-round pick in 2025.
Shayna Goldman: Something about a crease of Alexandar Georgiev and Scott Wedgewood didn’t sit well. Sure, Wedgewood has shown what a capable backup he can be and he has impressed in Colorado with 5.4 goals saved above expected in three games. But the reality is that the 32-year-old disappointed last year in Dallas and had an underwhelming start in Nashville this season. His presence likely wouldn’t be enough to stabilize the Avalanche’s goaltending — not when the team has Stanley Cup aspirations.
Despite Wedgewood’s start in Colorado, and even Georgiev having one of his best games of the season on Friday night, it felt like the Avalanche were going to turn back to the goalie market again this season. It just happened a lot sooner than expected.
Mackenzie Blackwood is an ideal fit for the Avalanche. His $2.35 million cap hit is as cost-effective as it gets, especially considering his caliber of play.
Every trade carries an element of risk, and there is a chance Blackwood will regress in Colorado. As well as he has played this year, the reality is that he still has yet to play up to his potential. Blackwood has a ton of raw skill but hasn’t put it all together consistently enough to be considered a high-end starter. But he has rebuilt his value in San Jose over the last couple of seasons. Through 19 games this year, Blackwood has saved 6.4 goals above expected and earned a .909 save percentage despite playing behind a team that ranks in the bottom four in both shot and expected goal suppression. And now he is going to have a lot more two-way support in Colorado, which should help him maintain this high level of play.
A Blackwood-Wedgewood crease may not be the flashiest, but it’s a solid upgrade for a team that has allowed the second-highest goals above expected in the league.
At this point, moving on from Georgiev was addition by subtraction for the Avalanche. He had a few promising starts over the last month but has been way too inconsistent. It wasn’t sustainable for the Avalanche to have to outscore their problems like they did against the Sabres last week — it burned them against both Carolina and Dallas in their last stretch of play. Maybe he can also rebuild his value in San Jose, but the results don’t matter too much for the Sharks right now. What matters is that they got a solid return on their investment in Blackwood. If Georgiev struggles the rest of the year, so be it, they can just lean on Yaroslav Askarov more. If he can rebound, maybe management can flip him as a rental at the deadline.
Adding Nikolai Kovalenko and draft capital was a nice bit of business for the Sharks. San Jose should be looking for younger NHL talent to play around their up-and-coming core, especially if management plans to move some veterans out at the deadline. Colorado should also want young, inexpensive players to fill out their middle-six, especially with a pretty weak prospect pool. But Kovalenko’s ice time has been trending down as the team’s getting healthier, and moving him helped address their biggest weakness.
Avalanche grade: B+
Sharks grade: B
James Mirtle: I’m sure Sharks GM Mike Grier watched his young team surging in the standings the past few weeks, with Blackwood leading the charge of late (5-6-1 with a .919 save percentage in his last 13 appearances), and felt he had to make a move.
San Jose, in a teardown that is starting to bear fruit, was always going to be a trade deadline seller this season. Grier had seven veteran UFAs to move, including both of his goaltenders, and Colorado was the contender with the greatest need in the crease.
Getting out ahead of this deal made a lot of sense for a seller given John Gibson and others are sure to be floated more aggressively in the months to come.
As a prospect, Kovalenko is a bit of a flier. He’s not big, although he does play with an edge. He’s also no longer young, at 25. And he really only emerged as an offensive option in the KHL in the last two seasons. In the NHL so far, he’s shown some middling bottom-six potential as a crash-and-banger. But in San Jose, he can play bigger minutes up the lineup and on the power play, acclimatizing to North America outside of the pressure of being on a team looking to win a Cup. Overall, he’s a decent bet to get back for a rental. And a second-round pick is a second-round pick.
As for the Avalanche, they desperately needed to move off of Georgiev, who had become one of the worst starters in the league. Full marks to GM Chris MacFarland for not settling for adding just Wedgewood last week from Nashville, even though the early returns on that move have been excellent.
Colorado goes from having a tandem with netminders ranked 52nd (Georgiev) and 55th (Justus Annunen) in goals saved above expected per 60 this season to one with two ranked 15th (Blackwood) and 24th (Wedgewood).
The biggest question for the Avs will be if they upgraded in goal to the level that they can win in the playoffs against competitors that will have starters like Connor Hellebuyck and Jake Oettinger. Wedgewood is 32 and has played a total of 105 minutes in the postseason. Blackwood, meanwhile, was the goalie of the future in New Jersey for years but faltered when things dialed up there in terms of expectations and has yet to see playoff action.
Goaltending is so tough to predict that making two bets makes sense, but neither one is close to a sure thing here, even behind a team as talented as the Avs.
Avalanche grade: B
Sharks grade: B+
(Top photo of Mackenzie Blackwood: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
