Goaltending a backbone of Avalanche’s hot start

The Colorado Avalanche have been far and away the best team in the NHL so far this season. Currently riding a nine-game winning streak, the Avs are 16-1-5 and are seven points clear of the Dallas Stars and Carolina Hurricanes for the best record in the league.

Beyond their usual firepower led by their core of stars that includes Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Martin Necas, Colorado is getting better goaltending from the duo of Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood than it has at any other point of this run of success.

After Blackwood and Wedgewood earned shutouts in back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday, Wedgewood owns a 13-1-2 record with a 2.09 goals against average and .918 save percentage, while Blackwood’s record is 3-0-1 since returning from injury with a 2.47 GAA and .911 SV%.

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goalie Carter Hutton discussed how Blackwood and Wedgewood have been integral parts of Colorado’s scorching start to the season.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Hutts, who’s your man of the weekend?

Carter Hutton: I went with the men of the weekend, because I’m a little biased. I love the goalies, so Colorado Avalanche goalie duo. Mackenzie Blackwood with a shutout in Nashville, and then on a back-to-back Scott Wedgewood in Chicago with a shutout… You look at their numbers right now, Scott Wedgewood, 13-1-2. This was a bit of a question mark coming into this season with Mackenzie Blackwood being out… This duo has been unbelievable… statistically they are the best goalie duo in the NHL. To flip both these goalies to the Colorado Avalanche last year, they gave up [Justus] Annunen, [Alexandar] Georgiev… [Nikolai] Kovalenko… and a second, a fifth and a sixth, and now they have the best goalie duo in the NHL. That is impressive stuff from the Colorado Avalanche.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…