New Jersey Devils: Don’t Freak Out About Mackenzie Blackwood

The New Jersey Devils season started falling apart once Mackenzie Blackwood took the crease. Don’t look too far into these two games.

The New Jersey Devils season started off great. They went out to a 4-0 lead against the Winnipeg Jets at home, Cory Schneider looked good and the team’s offense was hitting on all cylinders. Then, Schneider let in a goal right before the second period ended.

This caused head coach John Hynes to react poorly. Then, on the second goal against, Schneider tried to stretch farther than most humans are capable. It caused him to go through cramping that took him out of the game, and then Mackenzie Blackwood was thrusted into the game with no warning.

He wasn’t great in relief of Schneider. He allowed two goals on nine shots. That’s obviously not what you want, but he was literally going into the game ice cold. The Devils were still trying to control play, but they just couldn’t get pucks out of the zone. One of the goals the Jets scored, Jack Hughes and Nikita Gusev were on the ice for more than three minutes. Even if that wasn’t technically a high-danger chance, it was still a chance that had a high likelihood of scoring because of the exhaustion of the players on the ice.

Against the Buffalo Sabres, it was a rough night from the start all around. Blackwood wasn’t good, but the defense in front of him was even worse. The Devils allowed 12 high-danger shots against him, with three turning into goals. The Devils, on the other hand, only had four high-danger shots.

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There are some numbers that are decent when you really look for them, but overall it was a terrible performance all around. His rebound control was pretty good, with only three rebound shots all game. The Sabres were just getting some insane chances, and Blackwood wasn’t at his best.

There’s no reason to look too far into this. It’s been a bad start for the Devils and Blackwood, but these are circumstances we can’t see happening again this season. The Devils lost their starting goalie in the middle of a game where the ice was immediately tilting. John Hynes is still (hopefully) working out his defensive pairings until he finds something that works. There’s a severe lack of chemistry among forwards. It came with one of the worst collapses in recent memory. Then, the team had to pull off another game less than 24 hours later.

There’s no reason to judge any goalie under those circumstances, let alone a young one who’s trying to find his legs. Blackwood will be fine if we give him time to be fine. We saw him be a serviceable goalie last season, but to lose our minds after two games that were back to back where he had to play both is preposterous.

The Devils play another back to back this week when they play the Philadelphia Flyers and Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday and Thursday. We will likely see Blackwood in one of those games with plenty of rest. If he’s bad again, then we can start asking questions. The good news is the Devils don’t have another back to back until November (Where they have four. What is this nonsense?). They can give Blackwood time to get right in practice while Cory Schneider holds the brunt of the load in games. He just needs to stay healthy, or all this could be down the tubes.