{"id":584759,"date":"2026-05-27T10:21:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/584759\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T10:21:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:21:30","slug":"mackenzie-blackwood-plays-well-just-not-well-enough-as-avalanche-swept-from-playoffs-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/584759\/","title":{"rendered":"Mackenzie Blackwood plays well, just not well enough, as Avalanche swept from playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS \u2014 Colorado Avalanche coach Jared Bednar’s decision to replace goaltender Scott Wedgewood with Mackenzie Blackwood for Game 4 of the Western Conference Final wasn’t a bad idea, if only the backup netminder had gotten goal support.<\/p>\n

The Vegas Golden Knights completed a 4-0 series sweep of the top-seeded Avalanche with a 2-1 win on Tuesday night and will return to the Stanley Cup Final for the third time in their nine years in the league.<\/p>\n

The Avalanche now prepare for a long offseason. They had a dominant regular season, tying for the sixth-highest points by a Presidents\u2019 Trophy winner with 121, going 8-1 in the first two rounds of the postseason while averaging 4.1 goals per game, and then falling flat in the conference final by averaging just 1.75 goals per game.<\/p>\n

Though Blackwood dropped to 0-5-1 in six career appearances against the Golden Knights, he said he thought his performance was \u201cgood enough to probably get the win\u201d after stopping 24 shots and holding the Knights to just one goal until the third period.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, (expletive) sucks no matter how you do it,” said Blackwood, when asked if it is harder to accept being swept. \u201cI think losing like that stings a little more. Yeah, that\u2019s going to be pretty frustrating. We are going to have a tough pill to swallow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Avalanche, who were held to one goal for just the third time during the postseason and second time in this series, didn\u2019t get a shot on goal for more than 25 minutes over the second and third periods, as the Golden Knights were deliberate with their checking.<\/p>\n

Offensive star and assistant captain Nathan MacKinnon, who led the team with 15 points in the playoffs, finished the series without scoring one goal after netting at least one in six previous playoff games.<\/p>\n

\"Colorado<\/p>\n

Colorado Avalanche goaltender MacKenzie Blackwood (39) stops a shot during the second period in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series against the Vegas Golden Knights Tuesday, May 26, 2026, in Las Vegas. Credit: AP\/John Locher<\/p>\n

Martin Necas, who was second on the team with 12 points during the postseason, had just two assists against Vegas and only one goal during the entire postseason.<\/p>\n

Gabriel Landeskog scored for Colorado, cutting Vegas\u2019 lead in half with 2:03 left in the game.<\/p>\n

The Avalanche managed just one shot on goal after that, from MacKinnon, but Vegas goaltender Carter Hart continued his brilliant postseason by making his 20th save of the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe run into a buzz saw in Vegas … it\u2019s a really good hockey team, and they won,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cThey deserve the credit, you know. It\u2019s not a knock on our guys. I just think we played hard and didn\u2019t find enough solutions to what they were doing in order to win the series.<\/p>\n

\"Colorado<\/p>\n

Colorado Avalanche center Nicolas Roy (10) and Vegas Golden Knights right wing Cole Smith (22) battle for the puck during the first period in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series Tuesday, May 26, 2026, in Las Vegas. Credit: AP\/John Locher<\/p>\n

\u201cHumility is certainly a word you use for it. I think that\u2019s sports in general. I think you\u2019re going to run into that a lot on any given day on any given year, and especially in the playoffs, right? So, yeah, losing sucks and losing four straight is worse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Colorado Avalanche coach Jared Bednar’s decision to replace goaltender Scott Wedgewood with Mackenzie Blackwood for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[144,5,4,60,14,104,718,1105],"class_list":["post-584759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl-playoffs","category-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-playoffs","tag-stanley-cup","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl","tag-wires-bot"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116646044434291641","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584759","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=584759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}