It’s hard not to love Avalanche captain Gabe Landeskog.
It’s easy to hate the situation that he and the Avalanche are currently in.
Anyone who cares about the Avalanche or their captain is all too familiar with the story, a saga that’s gone on for three years now. Landeskog is courageously attempting to comeback from an injury and surgery that no hockey player ever has. There’s not a soul who can’t applaud his heart and effort.
Along with that effort, however, an uneasy grey area hovers around the organization. It’s a a haze that blurs the short-term hopes of hoisting another Stanley Cup, a lingering question that will ultimately define the immediacy of life without the only captain they’ve known for the past 13 years.
Earlier in the week, Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland offered an outlook on Landeskog that – for the first time, really – sounded discouragingly realistic, if not grim.
“I don’t foresee in the next day or two, or week or two here,” MacFarland said on Monday. “I think you guys can figure out where this is kind of going.”
For what seems like an eternity, the Avalanche have been publicly optimistic about Landeskog’s return. They’ve been careful not to put dates on things, but from time to time, there’s excitement – videos of Landeskog skating, sound bites that offer more hope than doubt. Even Landeskog offered a promising prognosis last March, a “when not if” kind of proposition, that placed him in the Avalanche lineup this season.
“Between mid-September and start of April,” Landeskog said then.
There are currently 25 days left in that window.
Love Landy or not – and everyone does – it sure feels as if there’s no shot of the 32-year-old Landeskog being a part of the Avalanche postseason plans. Internally, it’s quite possible that the Avs have known this, and prepared for this, for quite some time. Externally, it’s the news fans have dreaded.
Still, it almost feels like permission to clear the slate, approach the postseason with a very clear, realistic understanding – rather than a hopeful unknown.
But that’s just this season.
How long can the Landeskog situation linger?
Yesterday, The Athletic released an interview with Landeskog that may or may not shed more light on the situation, both short- and long-term.
“I’ve decided to see this thing through, no matter how long it takes,” he told Peter Baugh of The Athletic. “At the end of the day, I started it. I plan on finishing it.”
Admirable? Absolutely.
Helpful? Not if you’re Chris MacFarland.
“No matter how long it takes” is a tough phrase for a GM who’s trying to create a winning plan. To be clear, Landeskog’s annual salary is not crippling to the Avalanche; since his on the long-term injured reserve list, the team can spend his cap number and not have it count against their cap total.
Still, Landeskog is in the fourth year of an eight-year deal. As such, his contract does make it tricky for MacFarland and the Avs to truly allocate the money the money that could – in theory – be spent on someone else. If Landeskog does return, all of sudden, there’s $7 million reinjected into the budget.
“Here I am, 32 years old, really wanting to play hockey and really wanting to continue and see where I can take this thing,” he told The Athletic. “I think that’s maybe where we are in terms of this whole thing: How far can I push it? How good can I get it?
“And I understand I’m probably not going to skate completely pain-free again, but I want to be able to get to a point where I can at least manage it and then make a decision for myself and see where we end up.”
Remove the name. Lop off the loyalty. Is that a situation that any GM – or fan, for that matter – wants to plan around? One can see why MacFarland came across as a little grouchy early this week.
It’s an incredibly difficult situation, as the Avs owe a great deal of gratitude to Landeskog, who, it seems, might have paid the ultimate price to raise the Cup on their behalf.
“For the longest time I said, ‘I’d rather have a Stanley Cup ring and a f—-ed up knee than a healthy knee and no Stanley Cup ring.’ And I meant that,” Landeskog told Baugh. “I still wouldn’t change the fact that I did what I did for us to reach the ultimate goal in hockey. But I would like to have both if I can.”
MacFarland would too. But at what point should hope be replaced with real? It feels like that moment could come at any time, such as a segment that is set to air on Altitude at 6:30 p.m. That’s not say anything big could come out it. It could be something, but it could also be nothing.
Making the situation even more compelling is a docuseries that is set to release Sunday on TNT. “A Clean Sheet” chronicles Landeskog’s journey from the initial injury to the here and now. Every Avs fan will be glued to this must-see-TV, but it’s hard to deny that the timing of its release is strange if not telling.
Why now?
Landeskog’s status doesn’t appear to be “ready.” Wouldn’t it make more sense for such a series to conclude with a penultimate – happy – ending, one that sees the captain gliding out on the ice, ready to compete for another Stanley Cup?
Then again, we don’t know what the last episode is all about. Perhaps there’s a surprise ending.
A quick read between the lines, however, suggests there isn’t. If the ending is happy, we’ll likely need to wait. MacFarland will have to wait, too.
At some point, the waiting game doesn’t seem fair to the organization that Landeskog presumably loves.
A captain’s job is to do what’s best for his team. At what point does “what’s best” become telling the team goodbye? A comeback like the one Landeskog is attempting is incredibly hard. Letting go of his dream to return is harder.
Unfortunately, that might be what’s best for the Avalanche.