Nathan MacKinnon, Mackenzie Blackwood lead Avalanche to cathartic rout of Devils

Corey Masisak, The Denver Post on Feb 27, 2025

Published in Hockey

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Mackenzie Blackwood loves playing against his former team. The rest of his current team does too, apparently.

Blackwood made 22 saves and the Colorado Avalanche came to life Wednesday night in a 5-1 victory against the New Jersey Devils at Ball Arena. Nathan MacKinnon had two goals and an assist, and forwards who don’t skate on his line added a couple of insurance tallies in a cathartic win after rough back-to-back losses coming out of the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off break.

“Highly competitive, passionate hockey — that’s what it was,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “No passengers. I loved the effort, the competitiveness, the execution from all of our lines, all of our players, doing whatever they can do and playing as hard as they could possibly play.”

This was one of Colorado’s most complete performances of the season. One of the other games on that list? A 4-0 wipeout of the Devils in New Jersey in early December.

MacKinnon gave the Avs a two-goal advantage early in the third period. He buried the rebound of a Martin Necas shot with Colorado on the power play at 2:57. He added another extra-man tally to restore the two-goal lead with 5:46 remaining.

The reigning league MVP batted one out of the air while it was behind Allen. That was his 23rd goal and 90th point of the season.

MacKinnon has three power-play goals in the past four contests after collecting just four in the first 56 games.

“It’s just a different setup. I’m going to the net a little bit more with Marty,” MacKinnon said. “He was such a good half-wall player in Carolina. I watched a lot of video of him when he came here. He was so good on the half wall, so I don’t want hog it too much. I think a little rotation is always pretty good.”

Necas, who now has more multi-point games (four) than Mikko Rantanen has points (three) with Carolina since the blockbuster trade with Carolina, finished with three assists. Necas has 12 points in 11 games since the deal.

Casey Mittelstadt and Logan O’Connor added much-needed goals to break this one open. Depth scoring has been a significant issue of late for the Avs. It was Mittelstadt’s first goal since Jan. 18, and O’Connor’s first since two days before.

Artturi Lehkonen had the lone goal of the opening period. Necas and MacKinnon combined to win a board battle with three Devils behind the New Jersey net, and then the former fed the puck to Lehkonen in front.

It was Lehkonen’s 24th goal of the season, and MacKinnon’s assist moved him back into sole possession of the NHL scoring lead after Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl drew even with him Tuesday night.

The Avs dominated the first period, collecting twice as many shot attempts (28-14) and 21 of the 29 scoring chances, per Natural Stat Trick. The second wasn’t the same one-way traffic, but they had multiple great chances near the end of it to add to the lead.

Colorado has had games this year where the process outpaced the production. The goals arrived in late in this one.

This was Valeri Nichushkin’s first game back after missing the past 21 contests with a lower-body injury. He made an immediate impact.

Nichushkin played 17:46 and was second to MacKinnon on the team with five shots on goal.

“I thought he had a great game for his first game back,” Bednar said. “It’s hard to come back after missing that much time and step in. It looked like he didn’t miss a beat.”

The Devils selected Blackwood in the second round of the 2015 NHL draft and he played 152 games across five seasons for New Jersey. He made two starts against his former club the San Jose Sharks without allowing a goal, including a 44-save shutout in November before being traded to the Avalanche.

When Jack Hughes broke up Blackwood’s shutout bid at 8:28 of the third period, it ended the goaltender’s streak without a goal allowed against the Devils at 125:59. It also snapped a goalless streak of 168:28 at Ball Arena for Blackwood, after he had posted back-to-back shutouts at home before the 4 Nations break.

“I love the way we responded today,” Bednar said. “From our goaltender out — exceptional hockey.”