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Gabriel Landeskog remains hopeful for the Olympics. Bruce Bennett / Getty Images
Gabriel Landeskog joined his Colorado Avalanche teammates for practice Tuesday in a rather important development as a key leader of Sweden’s Olympic hockey team continues his recovery with the minutes ticking down until players head to Milan.
No. 92 had skated before on his own over the past week, and Tuesday’s practice with teammates was his first since suffering an upper-body injury crashing into the boards in Florida on Jan. 4.
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“Definitely making improvements,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said Tuesday. “He’s been on the ice for a few days now and getting better. Doing more in the gym. And that’s a big sign for me. Like when you can stay out (in practice) and do the flow, non-contact drills, and be moving around and not look too uncomfortable … so he’s moving in the right direction.
“For Gabe, obviously, we’re just really hoping he can get back and be part of the Olympics, and it looks like he’s trending in that direction.”
That’s as close as the Avs have come to saying, basically, that it’s going to take everything in the world to keep Landeskog out of the Olympics.
Two days earlier, Bednar had hinted as well that Landeskog was pushing hard to come back for Milan but did add this proviso:
“There’s always a little bit of nervousness when you’ve got players going that maybe aren’t fully healthy, but he’ll do the right thing, and I’m really hoping that we can watch him in the Olympic tournament because it’s something that he really wants to do, play for his country again,” Bednar said. “He’s earned that, with his season. Hopefully everything works out, but it’s going to be tight.”
On Tuesday, Bednar also didn’t rule out Landeskog playing in a game with the Avs just before the break if all goes well in his recovery.
Landeskog wasn’t available to the media on Tuesday — per NHL rules, he won’t be until he’s activated from injured reserve — but if a smile could communicate anything, the Avs captain walked by me Tuesday looking like a man who knows he’s on a decent path to get himself to Milan.
It would be huge for Sweden, which has already lost Jonas Brodin and Leo Carlsson to injury, who will be replaced by Hampus Lindholm and Marcus Johansson.
Sweden included Landeskog last June as one of its first six players, which surprised some, given that, at the time, he had played only five games after returning from a three-year absence.
It spoke to what Landeskog means to the Olympic team.
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“We wanted to send a message right away that he was one of our leaders,” Sweden Olympic head coach Sam Hallam told The Athletic in November.
It sure didn’t look good when Brayden Point couldn’t put any weight on his right leg after suffering a knee injury on Jan. 12.
But the next day, the Tampa Bay Lightning felt they had avoided the worst-case scenario, announcing Point was week to week. And league sources told The Athletic on Tuesday that Point continues to make progress and Team Canada is still holding out hope that he can make it to Milan.
The preference, from Team Canada’s perspective and probably the Lightning’s as well — with Jon Cooper coaching for both sides — is to see Point appear in an NHL game before the break. It’s not 100 percent he’s going to Milan, but Point’s chances are better today than they were two weeks ago.
When the dust cleared after a busy 24 hours for New York Islanders general manager Mathieu Darche, he had essentially acquired Carson Soucy, Ondrej Palat and a sixth-round pick in exchange for Maxim Tsyplakov.
A third-round pick was sent to the New York Rangers on Monday for Soucy, but then a third-round pick was acquired on Tuesday from the New Jersey Devils in the Palat deal.
So a tidy 24 hours of work for Darche, who wanted to reward his team for its surprising season.
The Islanders have plenty of salary cap room next season, so taking the full $6 million cap hit that’s left on Palat’s deal this season and next was very doable, and it explains why they got two draft picks in the deal.
The Devils had been trying for a while to move Palat’s contract. Having done that might help facilitate other moves.
Darche, meanwhile, knows Palat well from their years together winning Cup titles in Tampa, and whatever version of the player remains, the Islanders have added a winner, which was part of the appeal.
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As soon as the Rangers released their public letter about a new direction on Jan. 16, the Isles were on them about Soucy. Darche was aggressive on it because he’s been trying to replace the injured Alexander Romanov (who could be back late in the first round of the playoffs).
It’s important for the Islanders to make the playoffs. It’s the kind of experience they want rookie Matthew Schaefer and their other young players to have.
The Blue Jackets are 5-1 since their coaching change and will determine at the Olympic break if they’re buyers or sellers. Heading into Tuesday night’s games, they were six points out of third place in the Metro with a game in hand on the Isles. Given how wild the race is in the Atlantic Division, third place in the Metro is probably a more realistic target for the Jackets than a wild-card spot.
But if they determine during the Olympic break that they can’t stay in the race, the Jackets could be a real factor in a market that doesn’t have a lot of sellers yet. Pending unrestricted free agents include Boone Jenner, Mason Marchment, Charlie Coyle and Erik Gudbranson. Some of those guys could end up being extended, but calls are coming in on them.
Jenner would be a hot target as a leadership guy and his style of play come playoff time, and Coyle has already generated lots of calls — not surprising given how few centers are available.
It has been more than a month of Andrew Mangiapane being in and out of the Oilers lineup, and to some degree, it’s surprising he hasn’t been traded yet.
It’s not for a lack of trying. My understanding is that the Oilers are having ongoing conversations with teams open-minded about a return. But there hasn’t been a fit so far.
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Mangiapane has only six goals this season, with a contract that runs through next season at a $3.6 million cap hit, which complicates things. But Oilers GM Stan Bowman continues to have dialogue with teams because he wants to find Mangiapane a better opportunity.
My sense is that Bowman’s communication with the player’s agent, Allain Roy, has been as positive and constructive as it can be, given the difficult circumstances.
I wonder about teams such as the Winnipeg Jets, Ottawa Senators or St. Louis Blues as fits. The fact that Mangiapane has another year on his deal might actually be more appealing to those teams, none of whom are sitting in a playoff spot.
The Canadiens have slid down the standings a bit in the ultra-competitive Atlantic Division, which has made some fans in their market nervous, but management isn’t going to react by forcing a short-term move. They’ve already traded for veteran center Phillip Danault. They continue to be receptive to taking and making calls with teams, but the keyword to describe their trade deadline approach right now is “prudent” — the word Habs GM Kent Hughes used on a podcast Friday with Arpon Basu and Marc-Antoine Godin.
That matches what I’m hearing around the league, as far as the tone of the conversations the Canadiens are having. They’re not mortgaging the future to make it all about this season. They want to make the playoffs, but the bigger picture still trumps all for the youngest team in the league.
The Canadiens will continue to look at potential top-six options up front, but any move will have to make sense beyond this year. This is a creative front office. I could see a hockey trade that surprises people but makes sense in the bigger picture.
In the meantime, don’t expect a goalie trade, either. They need better goaltending, but that answer must come from within. There’s no starter on the trade market available to fix that situation.
Riddle me this, Batman.
How can the high-octane Avalanche offense — by far the highest-scoring team at five-on-five in the NHL — continue to sit near the bottom of the league on the power play?
Some things don’t make sense.
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“We’ve tweaked some things, it gets back on track, kind of slips away from us again — it’s a work in progress,” Bednar said Sunday. “Working to make sure we’re in a real good support with one another and an element of patience for our team. I think we’re getting impatient before the other team’s penalty kill and sort of forcing plays, which ends up in clears. And then we have to go and reset it and do it all over again.
“It’s a real tricky one for us because we’re doing a lot of good things. We’re creating some good looks. We’re not scoring like we would in our five-on-five play. So we’re just trying to find balance on how much to tweak it and how much to leave it alone and working with the guys to get on the same page. But it’s definitely a work in progress. … The consistency hasn’t been there, so that’s what we’ve been working on.”
There’s just no way a power play with Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar can stay where it is for an entire 82-game season. It defies logic.
Then again, the Avs’ power-play struggled in their first-round playoff series loss to the Dallas Stars last spring (going 3-for-22), prompting the firing of assistant coach Ray Bennett, who was in charge of the power play.
It remains an enigma.
Pierre LeBrun has been a senior NHL columnist for The Athletic since 2017. He has been an NHL Insider for TSN since 2011 following six years as a panelist on Hockey Night In Canada. He also appears regularly on RDS in Montreal. Pierre previously covered the NHL for ESPN.com and The Canadian Press. Follow Pierre on Twitter @PierreVLeBrun
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