{"id":412064,"date":"2026-01-17T04:25:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T04:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/412064\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T04:25:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T04:25:24","slug":"avalanches-mackenzie-blackwood-making-injury-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/412064\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche’s Mackenzie Blackwood making injury return"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Colorado Avalanche<\/a> have been rampaging their way through the NHL this season and they have the best record in the league by a wide margin. Head coach Jared Bednar’s team got some good news as goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood is coming off the Injured List and will be in net in Friday night’s against the Nashville Predators.<\/p>\n

Blackwood has missed the last 6 games for the Avalanche <\/a>with a lower body injury. He has been having a sensational season while sharing the goaltending responsibilities with Scott Wedgewood. Blackwood has played 15 games this season and he has a pristine 13-1-1 record along with a .924 save percentage and a 2.07 goals against average.<\/p>\n

Wedgewood has played in 28 games this season and he has a 19-3-4 record for the Avs. He has a save percentage of .917 and a 2.19 GAA.<\/p>\n

Neither Blackwood nor Wedgewood are usually considered among the elite goaltenders in the NHL, but they both have brilliant numbers for their high-flying team. One of the primary reasons for this is that the Avs regularly<\/a> have significant leads in games and they also have possession of the puck, preventing opponents from gaining scoring opportunities.<\/p>\n

Avalanche dominating the competition<\/p>\n

The Avalanche are holding down first place in the Central Division and they are 11 points in front of the second place Dallas Stars. Colorado brings a 33-4-8 record into their home game against the Predators. The Avs have yet to lose a home game in regulation time this season, as they take a 19-0-3 record<\/a> into their game at Ball Arena.<\/p>\n

The Avalanche is led by high-scoring Nathan MacKinnon<\/a>, who has scored 36 goals and 45 assists for 81 points. He is second in the league in scoring to Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers with 82 points.<\/p>\n

Marty Necas and defenseman Cale Makar<\/a> are right behind MacKinnon on the Avs scoring list with 57 and 53 points, respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Colorado Avalanche have been rampaging their way through the NHL this season and they have the best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,1116,192,144,5277,5,517,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-412064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-cale-makar","10":"tag-colorado","11":"tag-colorado-avalanche","12":"tag-coloradoavalanche","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nathan-mackinnon","15":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115908544122762729","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}