Colorado Avalanche Captain Gabriel Landeskog Victorious in Return

The Colorado Avalanche got one of their most important members back from injury, Gabriel Landeskog, who’d been out almost six weeks.

The Colorado Avalanche are getting healthy again. In tonight’s game, we saw the return of a very special member of our team — the captain, Gabriel Landeskog.

Any time one of your regular players is injured the team suffers. Well, Landeskog is more than a regular player — he’s one of our stars. More significantly, he’s our captain.

In a previous post, I called Matt Calvert the heart of our team and Landeskog the soul. Make no mistake, Landeskog is the heart, too. (Hey, remember according to Marc Moser, the Avs have, like, three hearts.)

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And tonight, after a 16-game absence from a foot injury, our captain returned. He returned, he scored a goal, the Avalanche won. He didn’t score the game-winner — that honor goes to Calvert, see above — but Landeskog’s goal was glorious just the same.

The goal came midway through the second period. Defenseman Ryan Graves had already scored to put the Avalanche up 1-0.

Landeskog had started the night on a line with Andre Burakovsky and J.T. Compher. However, he was back with his usual linemates by this play.

He received the puck from one of said linemates, Mikko Rantanen, and powered into the offensive zone. He drove the net, and we all know what happens when you drive the net. (Good things.)

Here’s the good thing:

Landeskog appears to be ell-recovered from his leg injury. Look at how he just powers past the Montreal defender.

Indeed, Landeskog’s game hasn’t missed a beat. He was involved in all areas of the play. He laid some hits, he mixed it up when matter got chippy — he was just plain the captain the Colorado Avalanche needed him to be.

Landeskog finished the game with the goal on his only shot. He had three hits and 79% in the faceoff circle. Not too shabby for his first game back.

The captain joked after the game that he wasn’t even sure he’d make the lineup since the team was doing so well. However, of course, we were all just waiting for him to get back in the lineup. (He also joked that his return wasn’t as good as Mikko Rantanen’s, who had a goal and four assists in his return.)

Watch our cap:

When asked about the injury, he demurred in naming it. However, he did talk about not favoring the injury because “Once you get in the lineup, you’re fresh to play.”

Before the game, Avs Twitter asked fans to share their favorite gifs of Landeskog. The results were as amazing as expected:

We all really wanted out captain back, and we were glad he was back in.

The Colorado Avalanche are in Boston. They’ll have a day off before facing the Bruins on Saturday. It sure would be nice if the return of our captain heralded a perfect road trip…