An optional practice for the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday brought massive news.
Gabriel Landeskog is back on the ice.
As far as we know, this is Landeskog’s first time skating since having cartilage transplant surgery back on May 10. His recovery has gone well, and back in December, he arrived back in Denver after spending most of his time in Toronto rehabbing. The Captain has been around the team for a few weeks now and was at morning skate yesterday cheering the team on ahead of their game against the Vegas Golden Knights.
If you are having deja vu, you are not alone. Landeskog returned to the ice on Feb. 20 of last year, but was unable to make a comeback. Obviously, you aren’t expecting a lot on the first day of skating, and as you can tell from the video, he’s not moving very quickly, but you have to start somewhere. This is uncharted territory in the NHL with this surgery, so this is just step one for any potential return to the Avalanche for Landeskog. The organization doesn’t want any setbacks in his recovery, so they’ll take things slowly as the days and weeks go on.
We’ll talk to Avalanche Head Coach Jared Bednar after practice for more information on where Landeskog is at, but for now, enjoy some videos from his first day back on the ice.
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