MONTREAL — A little more than two months ago, the Colorado Avalanche lost Artturi Lehkonen because of a neck injury. When asked how the team replaces a player like Lehkonen, coach Jared Bednar’s answer was succinct.
“You don’t,” he said on Nov. 11.
The Avs lost the services of another critical player Monday when Valeri Nichushkin entered the NHL/NHLPA Players Assistance Program. He’ll be away from the team for an indefinite amount of time.
Bednar’s answer when asked how the club will replace Nichushkin after a 4-3 loss in Montreal?
“You don’t.”
Colorado has been able to remain near the top of the NHL standings without Lehkonen. Nichushkin and Lehkonen are similar players, but this absence might prove more difficult for the Avs to overcome … and it could have a significant impact when the important games begin in April.
“He’s a fantastic player, kind of a ‘one of one’ player,” Avs defenseman Devon Toews said. “Nobody else like him.”
Nichushkin has been productive for the Avalanche before, particularly during the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs. But this version of Nichushkin has been at another level.
Lehkonen last finished an Avs game on Nov. 7, two nights before he was injured in a scary collision with the end boards against Seattle. Nichushkin has scored 21 goals since — the third-most in the NHL in that span.
Nichushkin was on pace for 40-plus goals and 80-plus points before leaving the team. That’s largely due to a dominant two-month stretch that saw him help ignite one of the best lines in the NHL before sliding back to the second line to give the Avs a deeper look.
There are only 11 players who have more goals than Nichushkin, with NHL Edge crediting Nichushkin with 16 goals in the high-danger area this season. The list of players who have 16 or more high-danger area goals includes Auston Matthews (16), Zach Hyman (21) and Sam Reinhart (24).
Nichushkin is also fourth in the league among forwards in average time on ice per game, behind Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Nikita Kucherov. He’s been a high-volume player in all three phases, averaging four minutes per game on the power play as the net-front guy on PP1 and then two minutes per contest on the penalty kill.
He’s played 80:36 on a PK that’s been ranked in the top 10 all season (though it slipped to 10th after two extra-man goals allowed against the Canadiens on Monday night at Bell Center).
“He’s a 20-goal scorer. That’s never going to be easy to replace,” Toews said. “We’ll obviously miss him. He’s an all-star in this league. He’s a guy that can score 25-plus if we need him to. That’s a lot of minutes that other guys are going to have to fill.
“Guys are going to have to step up. That’s what we’ve been doing over the last few years.”
The first place to look for help could be Lehkonen. He’s been skating with the team, and Bednar said could be an option later in this road trip, which continued Tuesday night in Ottawa and has stops in Boston and Philadelphia.
Lehkonen (and Miles Wood) returning will revive some of the club’s depth up front. Lehkonen was on PP1 ahead of Nichushkin at the start of the year, but has never produced at the level Nichushkin did the past two months. Getting Bo Byram back on the blue line will also help the team’s ability to generate offense.
There is also the possibility of external help. The NHL trade deadline is less than seven weeks away.
This is where Nichushkin’s absence could be an issue, beyond his on-ice impact. The Avs already had a second-line problem. But there was an obvious in-house solution: Lehkonen returns and re-joins a line with Nichushkin and Ryan Johansen. They were a strong line in limited minutes together before Lehkonen’s injury and before Bednar needed to tinker to help other lines.
Whether or not Johansen is the No. 2 center this club can count on in the postseason remains a question. Getting those players together for a chunk of games before the trade deadline could help the Avs’ decision-makers answer that question.
Johansen has a strong playoff track record. Maybe those three players would click again, and the Avs could decide that No. 2 center isn’t as big of a priority as others at the deadline.
But the Avs do not know when they’ll see Johansen, Lehkonen and Nichushkin together again. Samuel Girard was away from the team for about a month and missed nearly six weeks of game action after he entered the players assistance program earlier this season, but there is no defined timeline. It could be shorter for Nichushkin, or longer, which would run up against the deadline or even go past it.
This is the second time in about eight months that the Avs are left with uncertainty about when Nichushkin will be available. His last absence came in the middle of a first-round series against the Seattle Kraken, one the Avs ultimately lost.
If he can return as the same elite-level 200-foot player, the Avs will remain one of the top contenders for the Stanley Cup.
“We try to treat it as a big family,” Bednar said after the game Monday night. “You’d support your family if they had to go through something like that. We’re the same way as a team.
“Prefer that it wasn’t an issue for us a couple times, but it is what it is. We want him to be feeling good about himself and where he’s at before he comes back, so he can help our team and get back to doing what he loves.”
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