The Colorado Avalanche are facing a lot of uncertainty as they get ready for their season opener.
First, they don’t know when Val Nichushkin will be back from his suspension. They are also unclear about when captain Gabriel Landeskog (knee) and Artturi Lehkonen (shoulder) will return to the ice. Additionally, it’s uncertain whether a deal will be made to keep Mikko Rantanen and Alexandar Georgiev with the team beyond this season.
What is clear is that expectations are still high for a team that won the Stanley Cup in 2022.
“We have our challenges,” said general manager Chris MacFarland, whose team starts the season Wednesday night in Vegas. “But I don’t want us to wait for the cavalry. I want us to be ready to go day one with the guys we have.”
The Avalanche have achieved over 50 wins for three consecutive seasons. This streak might be tested due to their current situation. However, they still have reigning league MVP Nathan MacKinnon and standout defenseman Cale Makar to rely on.
MacFarland mentioned that Nichushkin might return as soon as the end of the month, but there is no exact timeline for when he can join the team, even though his suspension could end by mid-November.
Last May, Nichushkin was suspended for at least six months without pay and entered stage 3 of the league’s player assistance program. This was the second postseason in a row that he was unavailable due to issues off the ice.
“Val’s doing well, first and foremost,” MacFarland said Tuesday. “All the reports back from the league, the program doctors, is nothing but positive, which is obviously the most important thing.”
The next step is to rebuild trust with his teammates.
“We all know people that struggle with addictions and these sort of things, and they’re tough situations,” MacFarland said. “The players, all they want to know is that Val’s healthy and that he understands the hurt that they went through, especially at playoff time.
How they do that is something I’m certainly not going to comment on. That’s personal in the room, but I can tell you this: there’s not one single player that’s not going to welcome back Val with open arms.”
As for Landeskog, he is working hard on his rehab to return after missing two consecutive seasons due to a troublesome right knee injury that required cartilage replacement surgery. He hasn’t played since lifting the Stanley Cup when the Avalanche beat Tampa Bay in Game 6 of the final in 2022.
