With less than a month remaining in the 2018-19 NHL season and just four points separating them from a Wild Card spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Colorado Avalanche have likely seen the last of one of their top scorers, at least for the regular season.
The team announced Friday that captain Gabriel Landeskog, who has scored a career-high 33 goals and 69 points through 68 games, will miss between four and six weeks of action due to an upper-body injury suffered in Thursday night's loss at Dallas.
A six-time 20-goal scorer for the Avalanche, Landeskog was forced to leave the game after he was pinned to the glass in the third period. Now, with Colorado trying to stay in the mix for a playoff spot in the Western Conference, he is expected to be sidelined for the remainder of the regular season, with the Avs' final game set for April 6 at San Jose.
The news comes at an unfortunate time for the Avs, who have rebounded from a 7-14-3 stretch from December through January to contend for a Wild Card spot. It also marks an unceremonious end for Landeskog's best season at the NHL level. The left winger figures to end 2018-19 with the second fewest games played in his career, yet he's already eclipsed personal bests in goals and points, and also power-play goals (10) and power-play points (25), playing alongside Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen.
If he were to return in exactly four weeks, Landeskog might have a chance to play in Colorado's season finale as well as a potential opening-round playoff series.
