Avalanche gets huge boost hours before tonight’s game!

The Colorado Avalanche made a few roster moves on Thursday, waiving Chris Wagner and since he was not claimed on Friday, he was sent down to the Colorado Eagles of the AHL.

Room was made for the return of Valeri Nichushkin, Jonathan Drouin and Miles Wood, making it clear that reinforcements are coming for tonight’s game against the Washington Capitals.

Nichushkin will be making his season debut tonight after serving a 6 month suspension for violating stage 2 of the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program last spring.

You’ll remember that Nichushkin was originally removed from the Avs’ roster after a strange interaction with an unnamed woman in a Seattle hotel room back in April, 2023. The woman was heavily intoxicated to the point where she required medical attention. Paramedics arrived on the scene to find a distraught Ukranian-born woman who knew barely any English. She claimed that a ‘very bad man’ stole her passport and identification. The Avalanche’s management team was then accused of covering things up for Nichushkin. There’s still not any clear indication on what exactly transpired that evening.

As for Drouin, he has been out since the Avs season opener against the Vegas Golden Knights on October 9th with an upper-body injury and went on to miss the next 16 games. Last season, for his first year with Colorado, Drouin had a career year, scoring 56 points in 79 games. His return will be a significant boost to the Avalanche who’s been counting mostly on Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen for goals.

Wood also returns tonight after missing the last 7 games with an upper-body injury that he sustained on October 28th against the Chicago Blackhawks. In 10 games already in 2024-25, Wood has posted a goal and will be able to strengthen the depth of the bottom six moving forward.

Some great news finally this season in Denver.

On top of that, there was even some development in Gabriel Landeskog' situation. The captain took the ice with some of his teammates for some drills on Friday. He has not played since Colorado won the Stanley Cup in 2022, missing two full seasons while recovering from a severe knee injury that required cartilage transplant in May 2023.