Mackenzie Blackwood Has Disastrous Start In Return From Injury
By Nick Villano
The New Jersey Devils have been without Mackenzie Blackwood for close to six weeks. That is the end of his return timeline after he injured his knee back on November 3rd. The Devils hoped he would return in three-to-six weeks. He made his way back 40 days after his injury. He is starting his return with a conditioning stint in the AHL.
Things went very badly with the Utica Comets. It started off disastrously. Blackwood let in three goals in the first period. Remember, he is facing a lesser opponent. The Utica Comets, who’ve had a rough start to the season, need to win games against bad teams. The Laval Rocket are a bad team. They have a worse winning percentage than the Comets. Yet, Blackwood couldn’t give his team a chance to win.
Blackwood only stopped 18 of 22 shots. The first two goals should have been stopped. He overanalyzed the first shot, which was taken from a medium-danger area. Then, after Joel Teasdale got free, Blackwood missed a straight-on shot to immediately put his team down by two.
The hope was this was needed to get the cobb webs out. Blackwood hasn’t played in over a month. He needed to settle into the position. He was better after the first period, but that isn’t good enough.
Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid are playing so well the Devils aren’t going to force Blackwood into the lineup. Honestly, there’s a chance that this leads to Blackwood going on waivers. We’re not there yet, but it’s a possibility if they run out of time on the conditioning stint.
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Either way, Blackwood has to be better. This type of performance isn’t necessarily going to have Tom Fitzgerald lose all faith in. This can be excused away. However, this is the only one. The Devils need Blackwood to bounce back if he wants to be part of this.