The San Jose Sharks added goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood to the roster just before free agency opened last season, trading a 2023 sixth-round draft pick (Cole Brown) to the New Jersey Devils in exchange. General Manager Mike Grier gambled on the idea that Blackwood would recover from the injuries that hindered him with the Devils and become an integral part of the Sharks’ 2023-24 season. Grier quickly signed the netminder to a two-year deal with a $2.35 million cap hit.
Blackwood’s 2023-24 production
It was assumed at the start of the season that Blackwood would share the net with Kaapo Kahkonen. It was supposed to be a 1A/1B situation unless one of the goaltenders truly stole the net. And that’s what Blackwood did early in the season.
| Games Played | Record | Shutouts | GAA | Save Percentage |
| 44 | 10-25-4 | 2 | 3.45 | .899 |
Arguably, Blackwood’s best game for the Sharks was his first game ever in teal. On Oct. 14, 2023, Blackwood stymied the Colorado Avalanche, which came at the Sharks in wave after wave. Blackwood stopped 51 shots in regulation, including 14 shots by Nathan MacKinnon. While he ended up losing 2-1 in the shootout, he quickly won over Sharks fans.
Blackwood offers a lifeline to the Sharks
For much of the season, Blackwood offered the Sharks a chance to win games, even if the team never seemed to rise to the challenge.
According to the NHL Edge stats, in 58.5% of the games Blackwood played, he skated off the ice with a .900 save percentage or better. That’s in the top 70th percentile of NHL goaltenders. What’s more, his .899 save percentage of the season is just a fraction of a percent below this season’s league average of .900.
The Sharks received approximately league-average goaltending from Blackwood but could not manage to win more games.
This chart from Evolving-Hockey shows how much better Blackwood was than the team in front of him.
Looking at Evolving-Hockey’s goalie chart, you can see that the team’s performance in both even-strength and short-handed situations was worse than average. Blackwood was around average at even-strength, and he was good on the penalty kill, especially given the team in front of him.
On a team that seemed to lack defensive structure for large stretches of the season, Blackwood did his best to give the Sharks an opportunity to win.
Run support was an issue for Blackwood all season
Of course, to win, you have to score goals, and the Sharks didn’t like doing that when Blackwood was in the net.
Blackwood won ten games this season, but the Sharks scored three goals or more in only six of those ten games.
That goal scoring did not manifest itself in the Sharks’ losses either. The Sharks scored three goals or more with Blackwood in net in only six of the team’s 29 losses. That includes both regulation and overtime losses.
High-danger save percentage
Given the poor performance in front of him, it’s difficult to be hyper-critical of Blackwood’s play this season. However, if there’s one area to focus on, it would be his ability to make high-danger saves.
Blackwood faced 421 high-danger shots against in all situations this season, according to Natural Stat Trick. He was 8th in the league in high-danger shots faced, and he played at least ten fewer games than all of the goaltenders above him on the list.
Given the high volume of high-danger shots Blackwood faced, you would hope that his save percentage when faced with those shots would be higher. Sadly, Blackwood is 43rd in the league in high-danger save percentage with .812.
Blackwood’s future with the Sharks
Blackwood is in the final year of his two-year contract with the Sharks. He is expected to be the starting netminder when the season begins in October, though the health of Vitek Vanecek may determine if this turns into a 1A/1B situation as it was last season with Kahkonen.
Blackwood is 27 years old. He turns 28 in December. That means that if Grier believes Blackwood is the guy to help usher in a new playoff era for the Sharks, this is the prime age to do it. However, there are a lot of young goaltenders in the Sharks’ system chasing the spot as well.
How Vanecek recovers from this current injury could play a role in what happens to Blackwood. If the Sharks re-sign Devin Cooley, does that make the decision in net even harder? What about Georgi Romanov and Magnus Chrona, both of whom had opportunities to start in the NHL this past season? Romanov was impressive in the two times he came in to relieve his goaltending counterparts. Chrona played nine games this season and earned his first NHL win.
Next year, Grier will have to decide if he’s putting stock in Blackwood and signing him to a new contract or if he believes the timeline is better with Chrona, Romanov or a yet to be identified other goaltender. It will be interesting to see what he decides.
Editor’s Note: Over the next few weeks, we will be rolling out the player reviews for the San Jose Sharks. We realize there were a lot of guys rotating into and out of the lineup and some of the key depth players were traded. As a result, Fear the Fin plans to focus on the players who are 1) still with the Sharks and 2) played 20 or more games for San Jose this season.
