{"id":571374,"date":"2026-05-10T07:33:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T07:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/571374\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T07:33:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T07:33:29","slug":"avs-make-their-first-goalie-change-by-pulling-wedgewood-for-blackwood-during-game-3-in-loss-to-wild-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/571374\/","title":{"rendered":"Avs make their first goalie change by pulling Wedgewood for Blackwood during Game 3 in loss to Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2013 The Colorado Avalanche<\/a> made a change in net for the first time this postseason, pulling Scott Wedgewood early in the second period of Game 3 of their second-round NHL playoff<\/a> series on Saturday night after he allowed three goals to the Minnesota Wild<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Wild went on to win 5-1 and hand the Avalanche their first loss<\/a> of this postseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Wedgie was playing hard. I think maybe he looked a little like too aggressive on a couple of those,\u201d coach Jared Bednar said. “It just felt like they had all the momentum and the steam early in that game, and we needed to do something to kind of get our guys fired up and going, and I was hoping that would be part of it.<\/p>\n

Wedgewood made nine saves before yielding to Mackenzie Blackwood, whose last game action was on April 14. With Wedgewood getting 43 starts and Blackwood making 36 starts, the Avalanche goalies shared the William M. Jennings Trophy given to the team with the best goals against average during the regular season.<\/p>\n

Wedgewood, a career backup<\/a> who took advantage of an early-season injury absence for Blackwood and wound up leading the league with a .921 save percentage and a 2.02 goals against average, entered Game 3 with a 6-0 record and a 2.12 goals against average with a .923 save percentage in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

But some defensive breakdowns and undisciplined play in front of him set Wedgewood up for a struggle. <\/p>\n

Kirill Kaprizov scored on a four-on-four situation after Colorado’s Parker Kelly and Minnesota’s Ryan Hartman took roughing penalties for their scuffle. <\/p>\n

Then a hooking penalty on defenseman Devon Toews gave the Wild more than a minute of four-on-three play that Quinn Hughes capped with his slick toe-drag goal from the top of the slot, when he circled around the left wing before sliding into the wide-open middle.<\/p>\n

In the second period with the Wild on another power play after Kelly was called for holding Hughes, Hartman batted in an airborne shot to make it 3-0 and prompt Bednar to make the switch.<\/p>\n

Blackwood, who played the whole first-round series for the Avalanche when they lost to the Dallas Stars in seven games last year, finished with 12 saves.<\/p>\n

So now what? Back to Wedgewood for Game 4 in Minnesota on Monday? Bednar wasn’t ready to declare.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have a decision to make, but there\u2019s a decision to make every night. Some of them are easier than others,\u201d Bednar said.<\/p>\n

After backstopping the Wild to a six-game win over the Stars in the first round this year, rookie Jesper Wallstedt was the natural pick to start this series against the Avalanche. After the Wild lost the wacky opener 9-6 on Sunday, coach John Hynes went to Filip Gustavsson for Game 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gustavsson, who has been the team’s primary goalie for the last three seasons and made 49 starts during the regular season to Wallstedt’s 33, didn’t look sharp in the 5-2 loss on Tuesday. So the Wild went back to Wallstedt for Game 3 \u2014 with a favorable outcome. Wallstedt made 35 saves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no doubt he was going to be back \u2014 just kind of who he is,\u201d Hynes said. \u201cHe\u2019s a competitor. He\u2019s got confidence. He\u2019s been very solid, and I just thought he got right back to his game tonight. He\u2019s proven throughout the playoffs that the moments don\u2019t get too big for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL playoffs: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2013 The Colorado Avalanche made a change in net for the first time this postseason,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,1543,535,5,1117,795,1119,537,1123,4,6295,1496,2029,2565,43],"class_list":["post-571374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-avalanche","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-devon-toews","tag-filip-gustavsson","tag-hockey","tag-jared-bednar","tag-jesper-wallstedt","tag-john-hynes","tag-kirill-kaprizov","tag-mackenzie-blackwood","tag-nhl","tag-parker-kelly","tag-quinn-hughes","tag-ryan-hartman","tag-scott-wedgewood","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116549124311480527","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571374","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=571374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}