The Colorado Avalanche plan to put captain Gabriel Landeskog out on the ice for the 2025-26 season with little to no restrictions as he comes back from a knee injury that kept him out for three full seasons. Landeskog played in five postseason games for the Avs last season as well as two games for the Colorado Eagles. His playing time for teams other than the Avalanche could increase on Sunday.
Bednar said that he wants to get Landeskog out on the ice for DU‘s (Denver University) game on Sunday. As it is now Sunday morning, there has been no indication that that will not happen. If you have the ability to catch the DU game, you should get to see #92 out on the ice. He will join Avalanche prospects Tory Pitnter and Jake Fisher.
During the postseason last year, he averaged 17:13 of ice time for Colorado. Now he gets to prove that he is fully back from his tragic injury. The move to get Landeskog out on the ice for a game outside of the Avalanche organization is to not only help the Avalanche see how much Landeskog can handle, but just to get him ramped up a little bit more than he can during a practice. We saw while he was with the Eagles that he was able to be physical and moved quite a lot better than the speed of the AHL necessarily can play at. It, to me, felt like a “man vs boys” situation, which had me thrilled.
Landeskog’s pending return to regular season action could spark talks of perhaps the best comeback story in NHL history. Though it’s just great to see Landeskog determined and preparing for a return, it’s fun to think about his return being one of the most memorable comebacks in NHL history. Nobody in the NHL has ever come back from this unique of an injury that Landeskog had. He can and will be the first to ever do it. It remains to be seen how many games he’ll play in 2025-26, but the fact that Bednar wants him to play in the DU game on Sunday makes me believe that, like Landeskog, coach doesn’t anticipate many restrictions.
It’s great to see Landeskog back on the ice, he could play himself into earning the Bill Masterton trophy, which he was nominated for last year, but got beaten out by Sean Monahan.