DENVER -- Gabriel Landeskog could return to the Colorado Avalanche at some point during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, coach Jared Bednar said Sunday.
"It's in the playoff timeframe,” Bednar said.
The 31-year-old forward had cartilage transplant surgery in his right knee on May 10, 2023, and was ruled out for the regular season. There had been speculation on whether he’d be ready to return at the start of the playoffs, but Bednar reiterated that Landeskog won’t return to the lineup until he’s fully recovered.
“He's not going to come back too early -- it's just not going to happen,” Bednar said. “He has a timeline that says, 'You're not coming back before this date, doesn't matter how good you feel,' and we're sticking to that.
“It's his career, so we're not going to play with that regardless of where we're at in a playoff series. So, that's No. 1. He will not come back before that date, and then he's got to get himself to the point, hopefully, that he can come back. We don't have clarity on that.”
Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland told the “Frankly Speaking” podcast in January that the timeline they were given after Landeskog’s surgery was 12-16 months.
Landeskog has not played since June 26, 2022, when he had an assist to help Colorado win the Stanley Cup with a 2-1 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6 of the Cup Final. He previously had surgery on his quad during the 2020 postseason and knee surgery twice, in March 2022 and again in October 2022, and missed all of last season. At the time of his second knee surgery, Landeskog was expected to be out 12 weeks.
He has not played more than 54 games in a full NHL season since 2018-19, but he’s been productive when healthy; selected by Colorado with the No. 2 pick in the 2011 NHL Draft, he has 571 points (248 goals, 323 assists) in 738 games, and has scored at least 25 goals four times, including 30 in 51 games in 2021-22, his last season on the ice.
He also has 67 points (27 goals, 40 assists) in 69 playoff games.
Despite missing its captain all of last season, Colorado won the Central Division with a 51-24-7 record, but lost to the Seattle Kraken in seven games in the Western Conference First Round. This season, the Avalanche (40-20-5) are tied with the Winnipeg Jets for second place in the Central, four points behind the Dallas Stars.
“There's a lot of runway still,” MacFarland said on March 6. “We're two years in and again, we miss Gabe immensely. He's a super hockey player, but this is uncharted territory, and he's doing everything we can. He's getting the best medical care, but we're hopeful. But there's still lots of runway there.”
Bednar also said Logan O'Connor will have hip surgery this week and miss the rest of the season.
The 27-year-old forward had 25 points (13 goals, 12 assists) in 57 games this season. He last played in a 5-0 win against the Chicago Blackhawks on March 4.
O’Connor has 82 points (35 goals, 47 assists) in 263 games, all with the Avalanche, since entering the NHL during the 2018-19 season.
“He is done,” Bednar said. “That's what kept him out [in November]. He missed a little bit of time, and he's missed some time since the [All-Star] break. You can kind of see a decline in his game post-break. All injury-related.”
