Mackenzie Blackwood has always been a workout warrior, at a level that even other NHL players marvel at.
He with ease. His personal trainer said if the 6-foot-4 goaltender focused on lifting weights a specific way, he’d be 255 pounds and look like an MMA fighter.
That’s what made the summer of 2025 so frustrating for the Colorado Avalanche netminder. Blackwood spent that offseason rehabbing an injury. He didn’t train like normal. He missed the start of last season.
Everything was out of whack.
“I was kind of up and down (last season),” Blackwood said Thursday after the first practice of training camp. “I was pretty inconsistent overall. There were good moments. There were bad moments. There were average moments. So I would say that year was pretty underwhelming for me and my expectations for myself.
“I mean, it wasn’t disastrous, but it wasn’t … I didn’t go home and feel satisfied or proud of the year, thatap for sure. So yeah, I’m looking to have a much better year this year and continue to grow my game.”
Blackwood was part of a Jennings Trophy-winning tandem in 2025-26, which is awarded to the team that allows the fewest goals. But it was the other co-founder of “The Lumberyard” — Scott Wedgewood — who led the NHL in goals against average and save percentage.
Wedgewood was one of the best stories in the NHL. He set career bests in every statistical category. As Blackwood noted, his season was more inconsistent.
Blackwood didn’t make his season debut until Nov. 1, but at the end of the calendar year, he was 13-1-1 with a .924 save percentage. When Canada named its roster for the 2026 Winter Olympics, Blackwood just missed and was the first alternate.
But then he missed the first two weeks of January with an injury, and the rest of his regular season had more downs than ups. When the playoffs began, Wedgewood had the net.
Blackwood got it back in the second round, then lost it again. He drew back in for Game 4 against Vegas in the Western Conference Final and played great in defeat, but the frustration with his postseason usage seeped out in his postgame interview.
“Right away, it’s pretty fresh,” Blackwood said. “So pretty soon after, you go home, you think about it and you say, ‘What could I do better, what’s out of my control,’ and anything that you can do, that’s on you to come back next year and fix it.”
That process started with a normal offseason. He hopes it continues with a normal training camp.
His coach has already noticed a difference.
“He had an incredible offseason,” Jared Bednar said. “He put a tremendous amount of work in to come in the best shape of his life. He’s excited about the season … I’m excited for like the season that he has the potential to have.
“It’s my goal to play him as our starter. If he’s playing well and doing all the things we think he can do, then we’ll go like that.”
Last year, Blackwood had to watch and wait while Wedgewood started 11 of the first 12 games. He watched for much of the club’s postseason run.
One theme that emerged from the aftermath of the Avs’ stunning collapse is Colorado needs more from Blackwood. Bednar called it a “clean slate” at media day when asked about his goaltenders.
“If you take 100% of both of us on a given night, I’d pick him too,” Wedgewood said. “He’s bigger. He’s (got the) full splits. There’s just a consistency thing that’s hard to do in this league. He came in with an injury last year and it’s an unforgiving league, but it wasn’t like he had a 4.00 goals-against average. He was still great for us.
“If we get him to 50 games and me at 34 and he’s consistent and has good as he can be, it helps us all. My goal is to win the Stanley Cup with this team. If we need him to play 50 and me 34, or 42 and 42, whatever works.”
As Blackwood begins the second season of his five-year, $26.25 million contract, he still has plenty to prove. He’ll turn 30 in December, but it feels like there’s still another level for him to find.
And he certainly still wants to prove he can be “the guy” here in Denver, even if his buddy Wedgewood is playing at a high level as well.
“If I say no, then I don’t deserve to play in this league,” Blackwood said. “Every time I get on the ice, you have to go out there and say, ‘This is my net, and nobody’s gonna take this from me.’ So I think everybody who goes and plays in this league has to have that same mentality, and the same is true for me.
“That’s how you have to feel and approach it.”
