The Colorado Avalanche defeated the Anaheim Ducks by a score of 4-1 on Tuesday night. It was a fun game to witness, but as you know, injuries happen. Unfortunately, Valeri Nichushkin is now on the injury report after playing just 12:57 of ice time in the matchup.
We don’t know the exact nature of the injury, but head coach Jared Bednar, on his weekly appearance on the radio Wednesday, said it was a lower-body injury to the star forward. We should know more information about a timeline at some point, but it likely won’t be that soon.
In the 2025-26 season, Nichushkin has played in all 17 games to this point, and has five goals and seven assists. That’s a pretty good combination of helping the team win. The Avalanche are atop the Western Conference with 11 wins and six losses, which includes five overtime/shootout losses, which is pretty remarkable to be able to hold off opponents for an entire extra period.
Nichushkin’s absence will be apparent because he’s a big physical player who skates well and can make some pretty nice plays along the boards as well as with the puck. The return of Gabriel Landeskog can partially make up for Nichushkin’s absence because of his physical player as well as leadership, but having more physicality out on the ice is key.
What will the Colorado Avalanche do to fill the Nichushkin void?
The nice thing about this current roster is that they have some depth scorers. Gabriel Landeskog has seen time on the second and third lines this year, and he and Ross Colton have switched spots with each other at some point, which is interesting. Head coach Jared Bednar appears to want to test different lines to get the most of his players at all times.
Now, I don’t think that Landeskog would be the one to fill in on Nichushkin’s spot simply because he plays the opposite wing position, and the Avs likely want to just get their captain comfortable in a regular role instead of switching his position to the other side. To me, that’s a very smart way of handling that situation.
I think the likeliest player to fill in at Nichushkin’s spot is Victor Olofsson, who has really stepped up in his role on the team this season. Olofsson has five goals and nine assists in 17 games this year and with that type of production, I think that he definitely deserves a promotion, though temporarily.