Gabriel Landeskog to miss significant time following knee surgery

Jared Bednar and the Colorado Avalanche announced today that Gabriel Landeskog would miss upwards of 12 weeks with a knee injury.

The Avalanche’s captain was dealing with a knee injury that kept him out of the rotation at the end of last season  but returned to help the club win the Stanley Cup. It certainly speaks to his toughness, but also indicates he needed more time to recover and has now missed the start of the 2022-2023 season.

While it hasn’t been officially announced, the assumption now is that Gabriel Landeskog will head to long-term injured reserve and hopefully clear a little bit of space for an acquisition. The Avs will have to look to shore up their forward depth now that Gabe is missing significant time, and Darren Helm is still working to make his way back to the club.

What should the Colorado Avalanche do to replace Gabriel Landeskog?

Given the injuries and lack of solid free agents, there is a stronger possibility that the Avs work in a steady rotation of young prospects to help fill some of the gap left by Landeskog (and Helm). We’ve already seen Ben Meyers sent back down to the Eagles to work on his game and Lukas Sedlak waived but Jayson Megna, Anton Blidh, and Martin Kaut have all been recalled by the Avalanche and will be in the rotation Wednesday night against the Winnipeg Jets.

If Mikhail Malstev keeps scoring in the AHL, then there’s also a chance the team calls him up to anchor the fourth line while promoting other players to the 2nd and 3rd lines in Gabe’s absence. This may also strengthen the conversation to bring the most popular of the prospects, Oskar Ollauson, into the fold sooner than anticipated, but that might be a much further down the road move as the team tests the prospects with NHL experience first.

While losing the Captain for a significant amount of time isn’t the best news, it’s also not the worst. If the Avalanche can find a guy in their system that is serviceable, then they should have enough firepower with Rantanen, Mackinnon, Lehkonen, Makar and Nichushkin to stay competitive. That will put Landy on track to join the team in February and help the Avs make their playoff push. There’s still hope, Avs fans, and long-term it’s better that the Captain rests now. We’ll just have to wait and see what moves are made to ensure the Colorado Avalanche maintain the course for going back-to-back.