The New Jersey Devils had one positive aspect to their season and that was the rise of Mackenzie Blackwood. His fantastic year in net gives us hope for the future of the goaltender position.
A lot of the New Jersey Devils hopes going into the season had to do with the performances of their goaltenders. They expected Cory Schneider to be good and healthy and MacKenzie Blackwood to improve on his good numbers from 2018-19. Well, one of those two things happened. Schneider wasn’t very good at all, but Blackwood looked like he might be a number-one caliber goalie in the NHL. He has a little bit more to prove but he is certainly well on his way.
He had a bit of a bumpy start, but he was brilliant from December on. The goaltender can mask a lot of problems the rest of the team has, and Blackwood did that towards the end of the season. The Devils are going to finish pretty close to the bottom of the NHL standings and it would have been even worse if Blackwood wasn’t borderline elite. He had a record of 22-14-8 which is even better when you realize the Devils as a whole have a record of 28-29-12. It makes you wonder what would have happened if this team had a capable backup.
Blackwood had three shutouts over his 47 games played with a .915 save percentage and a 2.77 goals-against average. Those are very good numbers for the 23-year-old netminder. The fact that he can get even better is a good thing for New Jersey Devils fans. He is very young and could develop even further which could ultimately see him enter the level of one of the league’s best goalies.
The Devils are a team that might be able to progress some more in 2020-21, whenever it starts. As possible as that might be, they still need good goaltending to win games. You could even say that they need above average goaltending to have a chance next year and most would probably agree with you. Mackenzie Blackwood can be that guy. The key is finding a good backup if they can move on from Schneider because as we saw this year, Blackwood can’t do it all on his own. Pretty much no goaltender starts 70 plus games and carries the team in that way.
Mackenzie Blackwood is one of a few Devils players that deserve an A this season. He played very well in goal for a team that gave him little help. The high-danger chances were plentiful all year long and Blackwood still had very good numbers. He gave the Devils a chance to win every night that he played. He deserves this good grade for the way he played and hopefully, he can become an A+ goalie one day.