How the 'Lumber Yard' was built: Inside the Avalanche's goaltending tandem

Goaltending tandems can be created overnight. That's what the Colorado Avalanche did when they traded for Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood within days of each other during the 2024-25 season.

As for creating an authentic relationship between those goalies -- beyond presenting the harmonious image of saying nice things about each other while smiling for the cameras?

That takes time. While Denver is where "The Lumber Yard" tandem is on display, Albany, New York is where the seeds were planted almost a decade earlier.

"We've played together in the past and we have that familiarity from before," Blackwood said. "I don't know how to describe it. It's just kind of the way he is. He's a really easy guy to be friends with. He's very vocal and happy-go-lucky and it's easy to balance stuff off a guy like that. It just kind of flourishes into what it is now."

Wedgewood echoed a similar sentiment.

"I think what we've both found is you are walking on your path, but we can be side-by-side together," Wedgewood said. "We do feel like we can be cheering each other on and we don't want each other to fail. Because then our team fails."

To understand where Blackwood and Wedgewood are now, it's helpful to examine their hockey journeys, which both began in the New Jersey Devils' farm system.

Wedgewood, 33, was a third-round pick in 2010, drafted with the promise he could become an NHL goaltender someday. Blackwood, 29, was selected in the second round in 2015, with the profile of someone whose athleticism and physical stature meant he could be a No. 1 option in the future.

But what they each encountered to reach the NHL couldn't be hypothesized or projected. It had to be endured, and led them to going separate ways. They found success on the subsequent journeys, which led to them being reunited.

The lessons that Blackwood and Wedgewood learned before coming to Colorado -- and what they've learned playing for the Avalanche -- have had a role in building one of the NHL's best goaltending tandems. It's the sort of partnership that could help guide the team to its fourth Stanley Cup.

"They were both still young and their personalities were different," said Rick Kowalski, who was their AHL coach with the Albany Devils. "They were both good teammates that were committed to getting better and wanting to develop before they would move on."

THOUSANDS OF HOCKEY PLAYERS -- drafted and undrafted -- shuffle through minor leagues like the AHL and ECHL. They do this with the hopes of reaching the NHL, while understanding that it might never happen. Teammates in those leagues who take different paths could eventually reach the same destination, whether it's with the team that drafted them or not.

That's what happened to Blackwood and Wedgewood when their paths crossed during the 2016-17 season in Albany.

Blackwood was making the transition from junior hockey in the OHL, and Wedgewood had three-plus seasons of pro experience, including in the ECHL, AHL and NHL.

Blackwood was trying to prove he could make it as a professional. Wedgewood was striving to show he could make it to the highest professional level. Soon, it would eventually turn into a three-goalie rotation that included Kenneth Appleby.

"I ended up living with Scott that year and it was an interesting dynamic," said Appleby, 31, who split the 2025-26 season between the ECHL's Cincinnati Cyclones and AHL's Toronto Marlies. "It was really good getting to know him and live with him. He was a few years older and had already played a couple years pro and showed me the ropes. He was such a great example to learn from."

Appleby said there was a point that season when all three were competing for one net but still maintained respect for one another.

"Scott pushed us every day in practice and with us being the younger guys, we were kind of chasing Scott," Appleby said. "We were learning from him and trying to be as good as him every day in practice. It made for really good competition and a really good dynamic within our group. We just kind of fed off one another."

Although Blackwood and Wedgewood were playing for the same team at the same time, they were maneuvering different challenges.

"Blackwood was young in a lot of areas. He was learning the pro game and learning how to live on his own," Kowalski said. "There were some things he did over the course of that season that a lot of the older guys, including coaches, just kind of made us shake our heads."

Such as?

"He was basically built like an NFL linebacker. If he didn't play and I'm walking through the gym at night, he's in there squatting 305 pounds like it's nothing," Kowalski said. "We're having to keep him out of the gym. He also had a gym bag that he carried everywhere with him that was filled with snacks and supplements. I'll say this: He knew his body and it was not like he was eating junk."

Kowalski chuckles upon remembering the other items that made Blackwood a bit eccentric in nature as a young professional. He recalled how Blackwood once used his couch cushion as a pillow to sleep on the team bus. Or how the coaching staff worked with him to develop stronger time management skills.

"I remember I had to sit him down because he'd be rolling in at 9 a.m. for our meeting with a coffee and an egg sandwich or something else in his hand as the meeting's starting," Kowalski said. "I had to explain to him, 'Blackie, your day doesn't start after the team meeting. You have to be ready to go.' We had baby steps with him and he would learn how to be a pro."

Wedgewood's experience was quite different at the start of that season.

He 2016-17 thinking that there was a competition between him and Blackwood to be the first called up by the Devils.

Wedgewood said he viewed it as his window closing while Blackwood's had just opened.

"That has nothing to do with the person. That has everything to do with the situation of 'that's my dream versus your dream,'" Wedgewood said. "Then you shake someone's hand. I think a lot of us know that you can tell within the first five minutes of a conversation if someone is being real or being fake with you."

Wedgewood said a similar initial interaction laid the foundation for him to establish strong friendships with other goalie partners such as Jake Oettinger, Antti Raanta and Juuse Saros.

What about Blackwood? How has their relationship evolved since that first handshake in upstate New York almost a decade ago?

"With Blackie," Wedgewood said, "it's to the point that I text him more than my own wife some days. It just depends on what we're talking about."

AFTER ONE SEASON together in Albany, both goalies would suit up with various teams before reuniting with the Avalanche.

Wedgewood started the 2017-18 season with the Devils organization before he was traded to the Arizona Coyotes in October, then to the Los Angeles Kings in February. He signed a one-year contract with the Buffalo Sabres for 2018-19, then another one-year deal with the Tampa Bay Lightning for 2019-20.

Most of his time away from the Devils was spent in the AHL, but Wedgewood would return to the team that drafted him at the start of the 2020-21 season. That's when he was reunited with Blackwood, who had emerged as the Devils' No. 1 goaltender.

Their second stint as teammates would be short-lived. They started the 2020-21 season together, before Wedgewood was claimed off waivers by the Coyotes in November, then traded in March to the Dallas Stars.

Blackwood had early success as the Devils' starter, then struggled in 2021-22 and 2022-23. He was eventually sent down to the AHL before the Devils traded him to the San Jose Sharks in June 2023.

While Blackwood was playing for the rebuilding Sharks, Wedgewood was on a Stars team that was a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.

In 2024-25, everything changed. Blackwood was still with the Sharks, and Wedgewood joined the Nashville Predators after three seasons with the Stars. The Avs were a strong team hindered by their supporting cast -- and their netminders. The goaltending duo of Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen struggled for consistency.

Avs general manager Chris MacFarland revamped his team's situation in net in quick succession, trading for Wedgewood in late November before acquiring Blackwood less than two weeks later.

"You don't really want to look back right now but in the summer, that's when you get that time to reflect and probably ask, 'How did we get here?'" Blackwood said. "I definitely look back on things and I am curious about how the path kind of winded this way and how it's worked out, but the path's still going every single day."

BACK IN THE DAY, Wedgewood sustained an injury that put Blackwood into position as the No. 1 goalie in the tandem. This season, Blackwood was still recovering from an offseason lower-body surgery that led to Wedgewood having an extended opportunity to start -- and delivering on it, with the strongest season of his career.

Wedgewood had a 31-win regular season, which is more impressive given that he won a total of 30 games over the previous two seasons combined. His .921 save percentage this season was the best full-season mark of his career.

Blackwood (23 wins) finished with more than 20 wins for a second consecutive season, and the third time in his NHL career.

Together, they embody how the landscape has shifted for NHL goalies over the past few years.

There are netminders such as Connor Hellebuyck, Igor Shesterkin, Ilya Sorokin, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Saros who can play more than 55 games in a regular season. Other teams use a tandem approach.

Teams that use tandems will point out that it creates less wear and tear on their goalies in general, but especially in an 82-game schedule in which travel is more demanding than ever.

"It also comes down to do you want to work with each other," Wedgewood said. "Maybe you don't like your partner, your goalie coach or you don't like things going on in the world. No one wants to live in that environment. We're both happy-go-lucky goalies and I think we fit our own niches in that sense of characteristics and personality traits."

There's another wrinkle with tandems in the playoffs though: Who will coach Jared Bednar start?

The Avs went with Blackwood in last season's playoffs -- a seven-game loss to Dallas in the first round -- but started Wedgewood in Game 1 against the Kings this season. Wedgewood stopped 24 of 25 shots in Colorado's win.

"Bedsy's going to put someone in the net," Blackwood told ESPN in March. "Whether it's you or him? When you get [to the playoffs], it's about the team. It's not about me. No one cares. I don't care. Nobody cares about me individually, but it's about how to make the team go as far as you can. When you get to the playoffs, it's all about the group."

With the way Wedgewood sounds, he'd be equally supportive if Bednar decided to go with Blackwood.

"I think it's just about being a resource to each other," Wedgewood said. "There might be a situation with travel or something where they rely on me. Those are situations you can't control and if they were to switch to me to give him a break or even if they rotated. Whatever their plan is, it's always team first."