Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog remains positive after announcing he will miss the entire 2023-24 NHL season.
Despite the announcement that he will miss the entire 2023-24 season, Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog remains positive and upbeat about his future.
The team said Landeskog will undergo a cartilage transplant in his right knee on Wednesday, May 10. Dr. Brian Cole will perform the procedure at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
Landeskog said he is confident in the 85% success rate of this surgery and has done an extensive amount of research on it. He’s been in touch with other athletes who have had this particular surgery and discussed recovery with them, as well.
But he continues to take his injury and time away from the team one step at a time.
“It’s all about just making sure that you’re putting yourself in a frame of mind that allows you to focus on something,” Landeskog said on Tuesday. “And for me, it hasn’t been focusing on missing out on the season or missing next season. It’s going to be about my rehab and my journey and getting better at making those small incremental gains.”
Landeskog said in a press conference back in early April when he announced he would miss the playoffs, that the injury initially occurred in a game played during the COVID bubble in 2020. He specified that it was a cartilage injury on the bottom of his patella that has progressed over the last two seasons.
The last game Landeskog played was Game 6 in Tampa Bay on June 26, 2022, when they won the Stanley Cup. He said watching the team all season has been the motivation for him to get healthy and get back on the ice.
“I just have to do what’s right for my health and really ultimately do what I can so I’m able to go out there and play with the guys and continue chasing more Stanley Cups,” the 30-year-old captain said.
Landeskog's absence impacts the team's future
While nothing has been done to fill the void of Landeskog's absence yet, general manager Chris MacFarland knows it will be a difficult task. He said Landeskog is a special player and his impact on the team has been missed this season and will certainly be missed next season.
"In terms of replacing him, it's really hard just to replace your captain and what he does off the ice, as good of a player as he is on the ice. He's a hard guy to replace," MacFarland said Tuesday. “The narrative of knowing that he’s potentially out and how we handle that and knowing that then we have some things that we have to look at. That potentially opens up avenues that weren’t available to us this past season.”
The Stockholm, Sweden native has had a stellar career since being drafted by the Colorado Avalanche second overall in the 2011 NHL Draft. He has scored 571 points (248 goals, 323 assists) in 738 regular-season games, and 67 points (27 goals, 40 assists) in 69 playoff games.