DENVER — Two days removed from his first NHL game in nearly three years, Gabriel Landeskog already is getting a promotion to the second line.
He’s also expected to see time on the first power-play unit when the Colorado Avalanche host the Dallas Stars in Game 4 of the Western Conference First Round on Saturday (9:30 p.m. ET; Victory+, MAX, truTV, TBS, ALT, SN, TVAS).
“It’s remarkable, really. When you think about the time he’s been away, and then you see the way he played the other night, I thought he was incredible under those circumstances,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said Friday. “He just has a skill set that we hope to utilize in a bunch of different ways in the series yet, and that’s a credit to him, the work that he’s put in. Just like the poise he had with the puck in the last few practices, in the game, I thought it was really impressive. So we’re going to hopefully take advantage of that.”
Landeskog finished Colorado’s 2-1 overtime loss in Game 3 on Wednesday with a game-high six hits in 13:16 of ice time, playing on the third line with Charlie Coyle and Joel Kiviranta.
It was his first NHL game since Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final on June 26, 2022 because of a knee injury.
For Game 4, it’s likely he’ll start at left wing on a line with center Brock Nelson and right wing Valeri Nichushkin, with Jonathan Drouin skating with Coyle and Kiviranta.
“I thought he looked great for not playing that long,” Coyle said of Landeskog. “He comes out for a shift, sets a tone being physical. I thought he was pretty sound defensively. Just very good with the puck, where he’s supposed to be, being in good spots, talking a lot. If you didn’t know his situation, you would have thought he’d been playing all year. I thought he played a really good game, and it’s definitely something to build on for us.”
Landeskog played two games (April 11-12) with Colorado of the American Hockey League during a conditioning loan to get him used to playing again. He knows there’s still room to improve his game in the best-of-7 series, which Dallas leads 2-1.
“No issues. The body’s holding up well. Been skating pretty hard as of the last month or so,” Landeskog said. “It wasn’t really like we were going out to play and then gambling on how I was going to feel. We felt pretty confident with it.
“I think there’s some things I need to work on and some things that that will come as I continue playing. The beauty of being in a playoff series like this is just, you got to jump right in. There’s no time to feel around and see how things are going. You’ve got to adapt on the fly and improve on the fly, and I think, right now for me, every game is super useful. Every shift is super important.”
While the 32-year-old forward may not look like his Stanley Cup-winning self yet, Bednar is hoping to lean on the Avalanche captain more in Game 4, including on the power play, which went 0-for-6 in Game 3.
“The only guy that’s missed any kind of time like that, that I know of, that’s come back and was equally as good or better than when he left was Mario [Lemieux],” Bednar said. “And it was impressive then. So I don’t think it’s fair to say the expectation’s got to be to where [Landeskog] was. I think he’s going to get there eventually, but it’s going to take some time.
“You can’t miss that much time in a competitive sport, a high-speed sport where all your reads and puck touches [are important]. You’ve got to be as close to perfect as you can be this time of the year, but we certainly feel comfortable enough, putting him in, that he can help our team. Otherwise he wouldn’t be playing, right?”
Selected by Colorado with the No. 2 pick of the 2011 NHL Draft, Landeskog has 571 points (248 goals, 323 assists) in 738 regular-season games and 67 points (27 goals, 40 assists) in 70 playoff games.
