Avalanche lose another star player to injury, testing their depth

Already dealing with an injury to Mikko Rantanen, the Avalanche were dealt another blow on Tuesday when the team announced that Gabriel Landeskog would be out indefinitely with a lower-body injury. No further details were provided as to the extent of the injury, or how it occurred, but Colorado’s captain was on the ice in the team’s last game, a 5-2 loss to the Ducks on Saturday night.

Landeskog has seven points thus far on the season, having scored three goals and four assists. Combine that output with Rantanen’s 12 points and the Avs are suddenly without a lot of firepower. Only center Nathan MacKinnon remains from the team’s original, star-studded first line.

Without Landeskog, other players will have to pick up the slack on the left side. Matt Calvert and J.T. Compher are the main candidates to fill Landy’s spot, as Jared Bednar will be forced to shuffle his lines once again. The head coach will have to juggle players without spoiling the chemistry that has helped Colorado to an 8-2-1 start.

***UPDATE***

At practice this morning, Bednar said that Landeskog would be out “indefinitely,” a term that carries an ominous tone. In addition, the coach unveiled the Avs new lines. Ryan S. Clark from The Athletic posted them on Twitter.

#Avs lines for practice:

Donskoi-MacKinnon-Kadri
Burakovsky-Jost-Compher
Nieto-Bellemare-Calvert
Nichushkin-Kamenev-Wilson

Girard-Johnson
Cole-Makar
Graves-Zadorov
Barberio

Grubauer
Francouz

— Ryan S. Clark (@ryan_s_clark) October 29, 2019

Big shoes to fill. First with Rantanen. Now with Landeskog.