Denver, Colo. - 1,032 days. That's how long it's been since Gabriel Landeskog has played in an NHL game. On Wednesday, for the first time since June 26, 2022, Landeskog took the ice in an NHL game.
That changed on Wednesday night.
Captain Landeskog took to the ice for warmups before Wednesday's Game 3 loss to the Dallas Stars, and though he was listed as the 3rd line left-winger, he started the game next to Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas, backed up by Cale Makar, Devon Toews, and Mackenzie Blackwood.
In his return to the NHL, he was one of the best players on the ice that night, as said by Head Coach Jared Bednar following the game.
There's no question [having him back] helps, especially if he can play like that, right? It was great to have him back. I thought the building was incredible, like right from the start of the game. The energy, they embraced him coming back as they should. It was great to see. I think I was really happy with the way he played. I thought he had great, like he was physical right away, involved right away in a lot of different aspects of our game. I was pleasantly surprised with the poise he showed with the puck and being able to make plays. It's happening fast. There's not a lot of room. But he looked pretty relaxed and made a lot of plays for us tonight.
Even Stars Head Coach Pete DeBoer had good things to say about Gabe's return.
How the Game Shook Out...
Though the Avalanche had the first goal, courtesy of a puck-moving showcase from Valeri Nichushkin and limited defense from Dallas defenseman Matt Duchene, the Stars controlled most of the game. From Jamie Benn's deflection on a beautiful shot from Thomas Harley to Tyler Seguin's ability to battle past Makar to net the overtime winner, and everything in between, they held the upper hand. Their power play looked sharp and during five-on-five play, they gave the Avalanche little room to work with to find lanes to challenge Jake Oettinger enough to score again.
It was a slugfest. But when it comes to creating quality scoring chances on both sides of it, I thought we were much better defending tonight than we were in Game 2 in Dallas. We just kept grinding and trying to chip away at some scoring chances. I thought we did a good job of that, too. So (a) fine margin for error. I would say, first period I didn't like our execution. There were a lot of turned-over pucks. I think we were in the right places, doing the right things. Our execution just wasn't great. And then we kind of found our game and got it going a little bit better as the game went on. And we got a few chances to win it on the power play, and we come up empty. So that's the difference tonight. So we'll look at it and improve upon it. But I think there's some good things that we did tonight that we can take moving forward.
The power play was a big point of focus for Colorado's loss on Wednesday. When asked about what needs to change with the man advantage following the game, Bednar's answer was simple: "everything."
We weren't great on our breakouts. We weren't great on our entries. We're too slow to shoot the puck. When we do shoot the puck, there's not enough traffic. So it really kind of is everything. They looked like they were out of sync [Wednesday] night...
You got to go to the drawing board. Yep. Whether that's personnel changes on it. So we ran two units last night because of the four-minute power play. You get a look at two units, and neither one of them was great. The top unit sticks with it and gets the two grade A's at the end of the game with a chance to win it, right? And one, we missed the top corner, and the next one hits a leg in front with an empty net, right? So they finally kind of start breaking it down right at the very end. We get the two looks, but it'd be nice to be more dangerous than that through the first three and a half minutes of that power play and capitalize. Just going to back to our 5-on-5 play, we've had leads in these games and we've had multiple chances to extend those leads and we didn't do it, and they came back in two of those games, right? They get the power play last night and then get the eventual overtime winner. They got a 5-on-5 goal in the third period the game before. And even still, even under duress in the third period in the overtime game there, we have a handful of chances to win it and couldn't beat Oettinger. So he's got something to say about it, too, at this point.
So, back to the drawing board they go. Overall, they need to find a way to find more space and spread the Stars a little thinner in all aspects of the game. Challenging Oettinger, who is playing an incredible series so far, will also be huge in finding a win in Game 4. Though not impossible to come back from, going back to Dallas without splitting their home-stay will make this uphill climb just that much harder for this Avalanche team.
They have the star power. They have the depth. They have incredible goaltending from Blackwood so far.
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