Avalanche and the captain’s pause: Gabriel Landeskog goes week-to-week after a lower-body injury
At Ball Arena in Denver, the moment arrived just before warm-ups on Sunday (ET): the Avalanche announced captain Gabriel Landeskog is week-to-week with a lower-body injury, ruling him out against the Minnesota Wild and placing a fresh question mark over a season that has already asked him to wait, heal, and return.
What happened to Gabriel Landeskog?
Colorado said Landeskog is week-to-week with a lower-body injury and would not play Sunday against Minnesota. The injury occurred during Friday’s shootout win against the Dallas Stars, when Landeskog took a puck in the groin area off the stick of teammate Cale Makar. Despite that, he logged 22: 54, recorded an assist, and had two shots on goal.
The announcement landed with the blunt clarity teams use when they have limited information to share publicly: week-to-week. It also ended, at least for now, the sight of Landeskog’s familiar routine on game day — the captain’s place in the bench rotation, his presence in key moments, and the way a lineup card looks when his name is written in ink instead of penciled in.
Why the timing matters for the Avalanche
The Avalanche sit atop the NHL standings at 42-10-9, first in the Central Division, seven points ahead of the Stars and nine ahead of the Wild. Sunday’s matchup came with divisional weight on its own, but Landeskog’s absence adds a second layer: Colorado now has to manage a short-term lineup reshuffle while maintaining its position in a crowded stretch of remaining games.
The team has 21 games left in the regular season heading into Sunday’s action (ET), including three games against the Wild and Stars. Those are the kinds of nights where a captain’s minutes can tilt matchups — and where his unavailability forces the rest of the roster to absorb the load, shift by shift.
Landeskog’s season production underscores what Colorado stands to miss while he’s out: nine goals and 29 points in 47 games. He also had seven points (two goals, five assists) in six games since returning to the Avalanche from the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.
What Landeskog has been carrying into this season
The week-to-week designation lands on a player whose recent years have been defined by long waits and measured comebacks. Landeskog missed three full regular seasons from 2022-25 because of problems with his right knee and had multiple surgeries, including a cartilage transplant on May 10, 2023. He was sidelined for 1, 032 days since winning the Stanley Cup in Game 6 of the 2022 Stanley Cup Final before returning to play the Stars in Game 3 of the 2025 Western Conference First Round.
Earlier this season, on Jan. 4, Landeskog sustained an upper-body injury but recovered in time to play at the Olympics, where he produced four points (two goals, two assists) in five games for seventh-place Team Sweden. That sequence — injury, recovery, return — makes the current pause feel sharper, even if Colorado has not provided a specific timetable beyond week-to-week.
Who is stepping in, and what the team is doing next
Colorado has already been active in shaping its roster for the run ahead. Prior to the trade deadline, the team acquired forward Nazem Kadri from the Calgary Flames, centre Nicolas Roy from the Toronto Maple Leafs, and defenceman Brett Kulak from the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Those moves now sit in a new light. Depth additions are often framed as insurance for the grind of a season. With Landeskog out, the Avalanche must lean on that depth in real time, not as a hypothetical for later.
The team’s immediate next step is straightforward but demanding: navigate the schedule without its captain, starting with Sunday’s game against Minnesota, while Landeskog’s status remains week-to-week. Colorado’s announcement came prior to that game, keeping the focus on short-term availability rather than long-term prognosis.
What the injury means beyond the standings
Injuries are listed as bullet points, but they live as interruptions. Friday night’s game against Dallas ended with a shootout win, and Landeskog was still on the ice for 22: 54, producing an assist. Then Sunday arrived with the reality that the same player who helped shape that victory would not dress for the next one.
That contrast captures how quickly a season can narrow for a team and a player at once: one night, a captain finishing a game; the next, a medical designation and an empty stall. For the Avalanche, the challenge is to keep the pace of a first-place team while leaving space for a captain’s recovery. For Landeskog, it is another chapter in a stretch of years where his ability to play has been measured not only by skill, but by the body’s willingness to cooperate.
When the puck drops in Denver, the Avalanche will still have the record, the division lead, and the remaining games ahead. What they won’t have, for now, is Gabriel Landeskog in uniform — and the uncertainty of “week-to-week” will hang in the air until the captain’s pause finally ends.
