Mackenzie Blackwood exposes and embarrasses the Devils

The tenure of goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood with the New Jersey Devils did not go according to plan, as he experienced a multitude of injury woes that caused him to miss extended time. Eventually, he was traded to the San Jose Sharks, where he plays today. 

Blackwood, who is back on IR after suffering an injury ironically against his former team, recently revealed that the Devils wanted him to return to action before he was ready to. 

"When I first got hurt in New Jersey, I never really treated it properly in terms of waiting till I was fully healthy to start trying to play and play a lot again," Blackwood said on February 26th. "It just compiled. I did my ankle, and I did my groin, and then I did my other side just because everything is just overworking each other, right? So I never really waited long enough for my body to be ready to handle a full 82-game workload."

"At the time when I had my big ankle thing, they were struggling, and you know, I wasn't ready to play," Blackwood said. "I thought I wasn't ready, but they thought it was fine."

Because Blackwood was rarely available to play due to injury, the Devils moved on from him. Now, the Devils find themselves mired in goaltending woes themselves. In the meantime, Blackwood is keen on setting the record straight of how his time went with the franchise. 

"It was conversations. We talked about it together. Obviously, you can always say no," Blackwood explained in terms of his control that he had with the team. "It was one of those conversations we had where it's probably not going to get worse if you keep going, but it might take longer to get back to 100."

He's amassed a 9-18-3 record for the struggling Sharks with a 3.48 goals against average and an .899 save percentage. 

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