Avalanche’s Gabriel Landeskog trending toward a return – for real
Another viral video of Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog taking part in practice has turned heads in Denver and across the NHL.
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Colby Cohen chatted about how Landeskog continues to inch closer to a return and what that would mean for the Avalanche.
Frank Seravalli: Let’s shine a little light on Landeskog and his return, or at least his attempted return. June 26, 2022 feels like another lifetime ago, in some ways. But that’s the last time Landeskog played in an NHL game, a Stanley Cup Playoffs game. It also likely happens to be one of the most memorable dates of his life, when he hoisted the Stanley Cup that night. But he’s on the comeback trail. We know that he’s been practicing for a while. You take a look at this video and he seems to be getting pretty close. He’s ramped up. This is his first look on some special teams. There’s some lateral movement on that knee. He’s a guy who has been stringing together some practices now. We’ve seen him in morning skates and he’s looked good at varying points, and then we don’t see him for two weeks. It seems like Landeskog is trending in the right direction. What do you see? By the way, he’s also taking some contact too for the first time.
Colby Cohen: I was just going to say, the biggest thing I see is he’s not wearing a non-contact shirt. When you’re wearing a regular jersey in practice – granted, this late in the year there’s not a lot of physical play – that means guys are leaning on you, guys are getting into you a little bit, and you’re going to have confrontations. I think this is really positive. It feels like he got over the hump of two days on the ice and then a three-week setback. We’re seeing consistency. Special teams is always the biggest indicator. When a player starts working into special teams in practice, that is the biggest indicator that a team is getting ready to activate a guy to play. Granted, we don’t expect to see him in the regular season. But, it is exciting if you’re an Avalanche fan to see the progression that he has made because, let’s face it, there were doubts that this guy was ever going to play hockey again.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here: