A Two-Team Celebration

Erik Johnson has long been involved in horse racing, owning stakes in dozens of racehorses over the years. He also has a very sharp sense of humor that has been reflected in the names of some of these horses.

On Monday night, when the Flyers honor Johnson for reaching 1,000 career NHL games, four Colorado Avalanche players who have had the honor of being the namesake for an Erik Johnson racehorse will be on hand. Gabriel Landeskog, Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen were also all part of Colorado’s Stanley Cup championship team in 2022; five other Avs, as well as the coaching staff, are all still with the club and will be watching on Monday.

It's funny how fate works sometimes. Johnson didn’t want to leave St. Louis in 2011 when he was traded to the Avalanche, but it became the place where he spent the best years of his career. When several injuries struck during the covid years, he almost decided to retire, but ended up sticking with it – and that decision got him that Stanley Cup in 2022.

Now, over the course of 13 years and a thousand games, the cards fell such that game 1,001 happens to be the night the Avalanche make their yearly visit to Philadelphia. So he’ll get to celebrate that accomplishment with the franchise with which he accomplished the most.

“It’s super special how it all lined up,” Johnson said. “I didn’t know how much I would play to start the season just based on my role. It’s kind of crazy that the schedule fell how it did. I know a lot of the Colorado fans will be excited to see that, and it should be a special moment.”

How special? Landeskog isn’t even going to play, but he’s coming anyway. Landeskog, of course, has not played in a game since the night in 2022 that he, Johnson and the rest of the Avalanche lifted the Cup in Tampa. He had knee surgery after that win and has been working his way back ever since.

But the two have a special bond that has been referred to over the years as a “bromance,” or certainly much more than just teammates. They arrived in Colorado roughly at the same time – Johnson at the 2011 trade deadline and Landeskog in the draft a few months later. That first year, they became roommates. Constant pranking began, and the duo brought it to the fans on social media.

Landeskog was named the captain of the Avalanche the next year, and Johnson, who had already been wearing an A, helped guide him in the early days of the role. At first there were some lean times. The Avalanche missed the playoff six out of seven years and didn’t win a round until 2019. But then things started looking up. Eventually, eleven years after they first met, Landeskog accepted the Stanley Cup from NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly. The first person he handed it to was Erik Johnson.

Related to that, this won’t be the first time Landeskog has traveled for Johnson either – he hopped on Colorado’s plane last year when the Avs went to Buffalo to deliver a memento of that moment.

But time marches on, and change is always inevitable – especially in the NHL. In the summer of 2023, Johnson’s contract ended, and he moved on. After a brief stop in Buffalo, he came to the Flyers at last year’s trade deadline. It could have just been a few-month thing, but he liked it so much in Philadelphia that he came back this year, and the impact he’s had on the organization in just 30 games so far has been remarkable – ranging from welcoming Matvei Michkov on his arrival from Russia this summer and opening his home to Jett Luchanko when the 18-year-old made the team out of camp, getting him out of the hotel until his eventual return to the OHL.

But nobody on the Avalanche is surprised by any of that. That’s why they are no doubt just as grateful that they’ll get to be part of the celebration.