The Colorado Avalanche’s goaltending duo got a major nod in EA Sports’ NHL 27 ratings, with both Scott Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood landing near the top of the goalie list.
Wedgewood checks in at 87 overall, while Blackwood is right behind him at 86. That puts Colorado among the teams with one of the stronger tandems in the game, matching the kind of season the Avalanche got from that position last year.
Wedgewood’s rating stands out the most. The 34-year-old is coming off a career year in which he won 31 of his 43 starts.
Those 2025-26 wins make up one-third of his career total, a remarkable jump for a goalie who has been in the league for a decade. His EA Sports number has climbed fast, too: he was an 84 last season and had been below 80 in previous editions before that.
Only seven goalies are rated higher than Wedgewood in NHL 27: Andrei Vasilevskiy at 94, Ilya Sorokin at 93, Connor Hellebuyck at 92, Igor Shesterkin at 91, Logan Thompson at 90, Jeremy Swayman at 89, and Jake Oettinger at 88. Wedgewood is tied at 87 with Jesper Wallstedt, Lukas Dostal, and Dustin Wolf.
Blackwood’s 86 rating holds steady for the third straight year, keeping him just a step behind Wedgewood but still in the upper tier among NHL 27 netminders.
Colorado isn’t the only team with a tandem drawing attention. The Minnesota Wild also feature a similar 87-and-86 pairing, with Wallstedt and Filip Gustavsson.
In Other News...
Avalanche Add A Scorer Who Could Earn A Bigger Role Fast
The Colorado Eagles have added another forward with some real upside, signing Francesco Arcuri to an AHL two-way contract for the 2026-27 season. Arcuri arrives as a former Dallas Stars sixth-round draft pick who spent last season producing for the Idaho Steelheads in the ECHL, and he has already gotten a small taste of the next level with five games for the Texas Stars.
For the Avalanche organization, the interest is in whether that scoring touch can carry up with more consistency. The Eagles are clearly hoping Arcuri can turn a strong lower-level season into a steadier AHL presence, which would make him more than just a depth addition if he handles the jump the way they believe he can. [Read more 🡒]
Avalanche Fans Have A New Blue Line Name To Watch Closely
A new name has started to surface on Colorados blue-line radar in Alex Gagne, the 23-year-old left defenseman who landed at No. 20 on the Avalanches Top 25 Under 25 list for 2026. Gagne spent the 2025-26 season with the Colorado Eagles in the AHL, where his role was built around steady minutes and penalty-kill work, the sort of assignment that often tells a coach more about a defenseman than point totals ever will.
His profile is also the kind that tends to travel well in an organization hungry for dependable depth, especially when a players college background has already earned him a reputation for leadership. For Avalanche fans, the interest now is less about where Gagne has been and more about how close he might be to forcing his way into the conversation for NHL help when the season opens. [Read more 🡒]
Avalanche Face A Familiar Pressure That Could Define This Season
After winning the Presidents Trophy and getting back to the Western Conference Final last spring, the Avalanche enter this season with a familiar kind of burden: expectations. Colorado has spent the past few years living at the sharp end of the NHLs contention race, and that kind of success naturally invites a harder question than most teams face, which is not whether they can make the playoffs, but whether they can keep that level from slipping.
The warning sign is right there in recent league history, where a Presidents Trophy season has sometimes been followed by a sudden drop-off, even to the point of missing the playoffs entirely. Colorado knows the other side of that equation too, with recent postseason exits still fresh enough to remind everyone how thin the margin is at this level. The target remains the same as ever, though, and for the Avalanche it is not simply another strong regular season but a run that puts them back in the Stanley Cup conversation. [Read more 🡒]