Avalanche winger on track for season debut after activation from IR

The Avalanche announced Sunday that they’ve activated winger Artturi Lehkonen from injured reserve. There’s no open spot for him on the active roster, so they’ve assumedly assigned a player to the minors in a corresponding transaction. That’s likely 2024 seventh-round pick Nikita Prishchepov, who made his NHL debut in yesterday’s loss to the Predators.

Lehkonen will likely make his season debut on Tuesday against the Kraken. The 29-year-old had missed Colorado’s first 12 games after undergoing a shoulder procedure early in the offseason. He wasn’t ready for training camp, but there was mild optimism that he could play by the beginning of the regular season. That was quashed when Lehkonen landed on IR when the Avalanche submitted their opening night roster, with head coach Jared Bednar quickly saying Lehkonen would be out through at least Oct. 28 — the date of his next evaluation by team doctors.

Evidently, the evaluation went well, and Lehkonen was cleared to play. He’s been skating in a non-contact jersey for much of the past month, so he won’t be coming into the lineup completely cold. With most of Colorado’s top-nine forward group ravaged by injuries, he’ll be relied upon heavily from the get-go. Lehkonen, Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin were unavailable since the start of the season, and he’s the first to return from that group. Since the season opener, Ross Colton and Jonathan Drouin have joined them on IR, while Miles Wood has missed the last two games with an upper-body injury and won’t be back until late this week at the soonest.

Lehkonen has become a fixture in Colorado’s top six since the Avs acquired him from the Canadiens before the 2022 trade deadline. He had 14 points in 20 playoff games en route to the Avalanche winning the Stanley Cup in 2022. While he’s missed 55 games over the following two seasons due to injuries, he’s churned out legitimate top-six offensive production while retaining the excellent defensive and physical game that made him a standout depth piece in Montreal. A neck injury cost him nearly half of last season, but he still managed 16 goals and 34 points in 45 games, a 62-point pace, while averaging 18:28 per game. The Avs controlled 56.9% of shot attempts with Lehkonen on the ice at even strength compared to 52.4% without him.

Whether Lehkonen lines up alongside Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen on the Avalanche’s first line or is deployed in second-line minutes to give Casey Mittelstadt some help remains to be seen, but he’ll indeed be deployed in that same top-six role against Seattle next week. His return couldn’t have come soon enough — the Avalanche have lost three in a row and have fallen to 5-7-0 on the season, placing sixth in the Central Division.

Lehkonen was on IR, not LTIR, so his activation has no negative cap impacts. They’ll actually gain cap space with the move by opening up a roster spot for him.