After 1,020 days, Gabriel Landeskog makes his long-awaited professional return

LOVELAND — In another world, Kevin and Jen Miller would’ve walked away from Friday night $4,000 richer.

They held six Colorado Eagles season tickets at Blue Arena, sick seats, as Kevin put it. And suddenly, those seats they’d re-upped for 14 years had become the most coveted cushions in town. Ticket resale prices, for a simple AHL game between the Eagles and Henderson Silver Knights, broke the stratosphere.

Selling them, though, never once crossed their mind. For this was the return of the Captain.

“You can’t put money,” Kevin said, simply, “on top of seeing Landeskog.”

Not just seeing Gabriel Landeskog. Seeing history. Seeing a man who’d waited exactly 1,020 days, since he climbed the mountaintop to a Stanley Cup with the Avalanche in 2022 and then free-fell into a nightmare of knee injuries, return to the game he loved. And they packed a tiny arena in Loveland full Friday night, as Avalanche teammates Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar and more watched from box seats, unified with a group of Avalanche faithful all hanging onto every twist of Landeskog’s skate.

And the hero’s welcome came, perhaps, in the unlikeliest of places: the penalty box. On his third shift, after chants of LAN-DY had long rained upon the golden-haired forward, Landeskog hooked a Silver Knight and was banished for two minutes.

As he sat, though, the in-arena announcer declared it time for a standing ovation for No. 92. And Landeskog raised a hand, smiling sheepishly, as a roar built in Blue.

“I was talking to the gentleman that was sitting in the penalty box,” Landeskog recalled, postgame, with a grin. “And I mentioned to him that I do, somehow even though it’s been a long time, I remember this feeling of sitting in the penalty box. And it’s still not a great feeling.”

“But, people made it special tonight.”

Much felt fresh again Friday, on a conditioning assignment to the AHL that represented Landeskog’s first professional action in nearly three years. The bench. The locker room. The ice. Landeskog, as he cracked postgame, forgot his pregame routine. But the knee felt “great,” as he declared to the crowd in a postgame on-ice interview, and flashes of the old Landy permeated Friday.

He was limited to less than 15 minutes of ice time, in a period-by-period conversation with Eagles head coach Aaron Schneekloth. He missed a couple makeable shots on goal, and got “a little frustrated” with himself on the bench amid a slight lack of involvement, as Landeskog recounted postgame.

But after several knee procedures, including a cartilage surgery no NHL player has ever returned from, Landeskog’s unbridled aggressiveness was encouraging both to public and himself. He drove a Henderson player into the glass on his fourth shift. He launched into an all-out dive to poke the puck away shortly after. And he joined a first-period dustup, grabbing Henderson’s Ben Hemmerling and delivering a headlock so nonchalant he looked like an older brother.

“Been thinking about this for a long time, and envisioning this, and envisioning being in a competitive hockey game again,” Landeskog said postgame. “And obviously, there were times when I didn’t know if that was ever going to happen. So it felt great being in the battle again.”

Through those low points, Landeskog waxed postgame, the support he’d felt had been incredible. From his wife. From teammates. From players across the league. And roughly 2,000 miles away, on a vacation in the Cayman Islands, former Pittsburgh Penguins center Eric Tangradi called himself “probably his biggest fan.”

Tangradi, once, had his NHL career virtually ended by the same knee surgery Landeskog had underwent to return to the ice. He knew the exact setbacks Landeskog had faced. He knew “rock bottom,” as Tangradi put it. And he’s followed the Avalanche forward’s journey from the edge of his seat, all the way through Friday’s triumph.

“Just to see him out there is a victory,” Tangradi said, of Landeskog. “If he has one shift – and I hope he plays the whole game, but if he has even one shift — like, this is like, massive success story.”

Landeskog had 13 shifts, actually. And the forward didn’t specifically pinpoint a timetable or plan for his return to the Avalanche, as the playoffs loom, but repeatedly emphasized postgame that he felt “good” and that he’d “see what the future looks like.”

And as he made his way off the ice Friday night, the chants of LAN-DY lingered long in Blue Arena, serenading a new chapter for the Captain.

“I never thought this was ever going to get to this point and get this big and get this much attention,” Landeskog said. “And that was never my intention. I just – trying to fight my way back.”

“And here we are.”