New Jersey Devils: Mackenzie Blackwood Makes Save Of The Year Candidate

The New Jersey Devils season is full of all these little moments that has fans on their feet. There is so much to hate about this season, but there are a few moments to absolutely love. Mackenzie Blackwood has given Devils fans those few moments over the past two seasons. On Sunday night, he did it again.

He made a bunch of really good saves against a team that just can’t put away the Devils. The Boston Bruins came into this game 1-2-1 against the Devils this season, and they haven’t scored a 5v5 goal against them all year. For having some of the best offensive stars in the league, the Devils just found a way to shut them down.

Mackenzie Blackwood made the greatest save in the NHL this season.

The last time these two met, Scott Wedgewood made 40 saves on the way to shutting out one of the most powerful teams of the past decade. Not to be outdone, Blackwood made 40 saves of his own for his first shutout of the season. There was no save as good as his last one.

Look at all three of those angles. Blackwood makes a sprawling save with his incredibly long legs that maybe only he could make. Maybe someone like Andrei Vasilevskiy could theoretically make it, but Blackwood just put up the best save of the year. This comes just a day after John Gibson made the previous winner for save of the year:

Still, Blackwood made this save with eight seconds left in a 1-0 game against the Boston Bruins. He was on an absolute heater, and he wasn’t letting anyone take his first shutout of the year away. The referees took a look at all angles of the puck, and it’s clear the puck was a centimeter away from going over the line, but it still never went over the line. For a team that’s had some incredibly bad luck with referee decisions, the Devils got one to go their way. It helps that Blackwood just made the best save in the NHL this season.