Injuries Continue to Pile Up for Avalanche

The Avalanche’s leading goal scorer Ross Colton will be out six to eight weeks with a broken foot. Miles Wood will miss a little over a week with an upper-body injury. Wood was initially playing through the ailment but can’t any longer.

Forward Artturi Lehkonen underwent shoulder surgery during the offseason and is yet to play in the 2024-25 season. Bednar said that Lehkonen has met with doctors, and some more intense practices are still needed before he can suit up for game action.

The injuries are piling up for Colorado in a bad way, and they entered the year knowing they would be short-handed for quite a while.

Captain Gabriel Landeskog has been out since the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in 2022. A brutal knee injury has forced Landeskog to miss two whole seasons but he is hopeful to return at some point this year.

The Avalanche also entered the year without Valeri Nichushkin who remains in the NHLPA’s Player Assistance Program. Nichushkin has arrived in Denver and is beginning to skate on his own, but he is not eligible to return until November.

When the Avalanche are fully healthy, they have a chance to be one of the strongest teams in the NHL. The only issue is that a full bill of health doesn’t appear to be happening in 2024-25.

Five key forwards are already out of the lineup to varying degrees and they’re still trying to bounce back from a horrid 0-4-0 start. They’ve improved to 5-5-0, but there is still a lot of work to do in order to get back into the Stanley Cup conversation.