Sharks Made the Right Call: Blackwood Signs Big Contract With Avalanche

That was fast.

Mackenzie Blackwood signed a five-year, $26.25 million extension ($5.25 million AAV)  with the Colorado Avalanche on Friday, following the trade that sent him out of the San Jose Sharks organization Dec. 9.

“When we acquired Mackenzie a few weeks ago, we wanted to let him get to Denver, get acclimated to his new team, new city and then in due time we’d reach out to him and his representatives,” Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland said in a team statement. “We are thrilled to get this deal done now and have Mackenzie under contract for the next six years.”

Blackwood has three wins through his first four games with the Avalanche with .931 Save %. His new deal starts after the contract the San Jose Sharks gave him back in 2023 — two years at $2.35 million AAV — expires at the end of this season.

It also makes Blackwood the clear No. 1 netminder for the Avalanche in the coming years, alongside back-up Scott Wedgewood’s $1.5 million AAV over the next two years.

“As I said when we acquired him, we feel like Mackenzie has just gotten better and better every year and he has come in and done a great job with us in his first few starts,” MacFarland said. “He’s a big body, athletic goaltender who is still young and still growing as a goaltender. Stylistically, he has fit really well with how we play and has been a perfect fit in our dressing room as well.”

After the trade, San Jose Sharks GM Mike Grier revealed that he considered keeping Blackwood, but concluded, “He probably played his way out of what we would be looking for, especially, he’s going to want some term.”

It looks like Grier made the right call. San Jose’s net is likely up-and-coming star Yaroslav Askarov’s in the coming years, and while Askarov has just a $2 million AAV in the next two years after this season, he might be a very expensive RFA in the summer of 2027, if he’s as good as the Sharks project.

“My job is to look down the road too,” Grier stressed, “and how much money do you want in the net?”

So while the vibes of a Askarov-Blackwood duo might have been out of control — “He’s a beauty,” Yaroslav Askarov told SJHN — it’s a salary cap league, first and foremost.