Colorado Avalanche: Evaluation and Areas of Improvement for Gabriel Landeskog
Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog, had a great season with just a little room for improvement. Ultimately, the best advice is to get the man to the playoffs.
Colorado Avalanche left wing Gabriel Landeskog had a good season. You could even say the Avs captain had a great season, considering he finished third on the team for scoring.
Landeskog didn’t have a career season, though. And, anyway, until you’re winning your last game in June, there’s always room for improvement.
As noted, Landeskog didn’t have a career season. That came in the Golden Why Not Us season when he earned 65 points (26 goals, 39 assists). His 62 points (25 goals, 37 assists) were a close second, though.
Gabriel Landeskog is hard to quantify by numbers alone because he’s the Avalanche’s captain. He’s not a captain in the Alex Ovechkin mold, who leads by example. While he’s a force on the ice, a lot of his leadership happens in the dressing room and with the community.
Like I said, though, those areas are hard to quantify. So lets look at some of Landeskog’s numbers and see what they tell us.
Evaluation of Gabriel Landeskog’s 2017-18 Season
Goals: 25
Assists: 37
Shots: 183
Shooting percentage: 13.7%
Faceoff percentage: 51.44%
CF%: 52.8%
CF% Rel: 9.4
The Avalanche captain put up some good numbers last season. The first one that jumped out at me was his shooting percentage — 13.7% is very impressive. Landeskog has never been afraid to take the shot, so it looks good when so many are going in.
Landeskog will be the first to admit he’s a streaky scorer — as he put it, he tends to score goals in bunches. Indeed, he had two stretches of nine games when he didn’t score a single goal and an additional seven-game goal-less stretch.
Gabe also scored two hat tricks just one month apart. They were career hat tricks #s 1 and 2.
Like I said, Landeskog was third on the team for scoring… in the regular season. In the playoffs? He was first. As color analyst Peter NcNab observed, this is a hockey player who’s built for the playoffs. He recorded four goals and three assists for seven points.
Areas of Improvement for Gabriel Landeskog
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With Landeskog’s linemates Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, I remarked that I didn’t think it was useful for them to just “Keep on keeping on.” I wanted them to strive to achieve greater heights.
I’m not saying mid-60s in points is Gabriel Landeskog’s ceiling except… it just might be. Our captain is a power forward who has a lot of plates in the air when it comes to contributing to the team. If his offensive numbers are relatively modest by comparison, he’s still a top-three player on the team.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see Landeskog reach the 30-goal, 70-point mark in his career. And he’s only 25. But… I think Rantanen and, especially, MacKinnon have already achieved higher points totals than Landeskog will make.
When it comes to the playoffs, though, all bets are off. The Colorado Avalanche need to keep getting to the playoffs, because this is where Landeskog shines. I don’t know that he’ll keep beating out MacKinnon in the post-season, but I think the race will be very close.
MORE FROM COLORADO AVALANCHE EVALUATION AND ADVICE:
Gabriel Landeskog will continue to be a controversial player, even in Avs Nation. However, I think we’re seeing what he has to offer the team — and the intangibles should count for as much as on-ice production when it comes to our captain.