Fantasy Breakdown: Avalanche Acquire Mackenzie Blackwood From Sharks For Alexandar Georgiev

The Avs shored up their goaltending by trading Georgiev, winger Nikolai Kovalenko and two draft picks for Blackwood, forward Givani Smith and a draft pick.

The full trade:

We knew this was coming because something had to give. No question, this trade has a pretty seismic impact across the fantasy landscape.

Despite ranking 12th in the league with 3.24 goals for per game and allowing the fourth-fewest shots per game at 26.4, the Avs were underperforming. Entering Monday's games, they were fourth in the very competitive Central Division. Granted, injuries to key players were a big part of the reason the Avs had trouble winning games, but there was no question their big problem was goaltending. 

The Avs started with Alexandar Georgiev, who led the league in wins for two straight seasons, and Justus Annunen in net. On paper, it looked good. With an excellent offense, and even though Georgiev was coming off a poor season with a .897 SP, it should be good enough to win a lot of games. 

Nope. They won a fair amount of games and the goaltending hasn't been nearly good enough. 

According to naturalstatrick.com, Georgiev was the seventh-worst goalie in goals saved above expected at 5-on-5 per 60 minutes (min. 100 TOI) and the second-worst goalie in total goals saved above expected. Among the 50 goalies with at least 10 appearances this season, Georgiev had the fourth-lowest SP (.874) and seventh-worst GAA (3.38), but tied-17th in wins. The Avs were smart by giving Georgiev a medium-term, three-year extension and choosing to let it play out after acquiring him from the Rangers, dodging a potentially behemoth contract that would've been difficult to move.

Annunen was so similarly bad he couldn't wrestle the No. 1 job away from Georgiev, with a .872 SP and 3.23 GAA.

Both goalies were incredibly disappointing from a fantasy standpoint. Zero-goalie enthusiasts rightfully made Georgiev the poster child to show goaltending was risky and not worth a high-round pick (even if last season was foreshadowing), and streaming Annunen was like playing hopscotch with landmines. 

Both goalies are now gone, with the Avs replacing Annunen with Scott Wedgewood in a trade on Dec. 1 with the Predators, and now Georgiev with Blackwood. It was a necessary move for the Avs to compete for the Cup. 

This is a huge win for both Wedgewood and Blackwood's fantasy values and, indeed, Blackwood has been one of the most popular pickups in Yahoo leagues as of this publication. 

Let's run through the fantasy implications for each goalie.

Putting aside my personal affinity for Blackwood, he rates out as a slightly below average goalie even though his current .909 SP is quite impressive seeing how he's playing for the Sharks. Per naturalstattrick.com, he saves -0.11 fewer goals than expected than the average goalie at 5-on-5 per 60 minutes, but keep in mind he has an awful defense in front of him and he's been known to steal the occasional game. 

His goal support will be much better, and while the Avs defense hasn't been particularly good, it's also better than the Sharks'. We shall see how the Avs handle their rotation but, going forward, even if Blackwood splits starts, he's going to be worth starting in almost every single matchup. 

Fantasy stock: Way up. Go roster him now if he's still available in your league. Wins, save percentage, GAA should all improve. The only thing that will be lacking is saves since the Avs are good at keeping possession of the puck and not allowing shots through.

Wedgewood was excellent in his Avs debut with 22 saves in a relief appearance. He lost his next game but responded with a 25-save shutout against the Devils. I think such a strong start gave the Avs more confidence to pull the trigger on the Georgiev deal. 

Wedgewood's a career backup, and I think that's the big issue here. He's never handled the same workload as Blackwood, who's already started at least 40 games twice in his career. 

If I had to guess, I think Blackwood will take the majority of the starts, but it wouldn't surprise me if the Avs split the starts evenly to begin with before deciding on who should be their 1A and 1B. 

Fantasy stock: Up, but not as much as Blackwood's due to the expectation that Wedgewood will likely end up being the 1B. He's worth rostering in the interim, however, as the Avs figure out their new rotation. More wins and potentially much more playing time for Wedgewood.

What do you call something that's basically the anti-contract year performance? While Blackwood's played well enough to earn an extension of some kind, be it with the Avs or elsewhere, Georgiev's performance has been so poor he might need to settle for something close to the league minimum next season.

Anyway, by moving from the Avs to the Sharks, Georgiev's fantasy value no doubt drops significantly. He will get ample playing time because the Sharks have little to lose; they're playing with house with an impending UFA, and if Georgiev improves, they can deal him again at the deadline. 

The question now is if Georgiev is worth dropping right now. If the trade doesn't spur Georgiev to improve his play, he'll have no value both in real-life or in fantasy. There's actually a chance Georgiev continues to be so bad he becomes something less than a streaming option. 

Fantasy stock: Poor performances and going from a contender to a lottery team? Georgiev's stock is way down, because this feels like rock bottom. In leagues that emphasize wins over saves, Georgiev is probably worth dropping. In leagues that emphasize saves and quantity over quality, Georgiev could either rack up the saves or further kill his save percentage and balloon his GAA. (Not that he was valuable in those leagues prior to the trade, anyway). Odds of Georgiev of being in a blowout loss are much higher with the Sharks, so the only upside (potentially) is more saves.

Georgiev remains a very risky proposition. The only reason you'd pick up Georgiev right now is if you want to buy him at his lowest value and hope that he can at least improve a little bit to gain some value.

Vanecek has been an afterthought in fantasy this season playing on a bad team and ceding starts to Blackwood. However, this is potentially a good development for his fantasy value because he's statistically better than Georgiev, albeit only slightly. Vanecek has Georgiev beat in SP (.883 vs. .874) and quality starts percentage (.364 vs. .353), per hockey-reference.com. 

It's conceivable that this development actually gives Vanecek more chances to play rather than being a default backup to Georgiev. The Sharks swapped one impending UFA goalie for another, but if Vanecek can outplay Georgiev, he might be the one who gets to stay.

Fantasy stock: Slightly up because Georgiev might be so bad even the Sharks don't want to play him, but no need to pick up Vanecek. He's still a streamer at best, but now he has a chance to start more games if Georgiev continues to be terrible.  

The Sharks were probably cognizant that acquiring a goalie with term might rub Askarov the wrong way, as it did in Nashville when they signed Scott Wedgewood to be Juuse Saros' backup. Askarov's path to the NHL remains clear because both Vanecek and Georgiev are impending UFA's, and it's highly unlikely the Sharks retain either or even both beyond this season. 

For now, Askarov will likely remain in the AHL will he'll get plenty of reps.

Fantasy stock: Hold, since he's still clearly the Sharks' goalie of the future. 

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