In a season full of superlatives, here’s another one: The Colorado Avalanche has passed the Valeri Nichushkin test.
Nichushkin will return to the lineup Tuesday night against the Vancouver Canucks at Ball Arena after missing eight games with a lower-body injury. In recent years, losing Nichushkin’s services has been a significant detriment for the Avs.
It was not an issue for this Avalanche team, which has been a juggernaut through the first 25 games of the season.
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“Depth, (more) healthy around him,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We like the lines we have and the depth we have. The back end has been solid. The goalies have been playing good. I think it’s a little bit of everything, but overall I think it’s the health and depth of our team.”
The numbers tell a significant story. Colorado went 47-43-6 in the games Nichushkin did not play over the previous three seasons. That is the equivalent of playing like an 85-point team over a span of 96 games.
The Avs went 103-35-12 with No. 13 in the lineup. That’s a 124-point pace. To put that in better perspective, the Dallas Stars had the NHL’s best points percentage over the past three seasons at .655.
Colorado was at .760 when Nichushkin played, and at .521 — just ahead of the 26th-place Buffalo Sabres (.516) — when he did not. That doesn’t even include the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which included early exits in 2023 and 2024 after Nichushkin left the team.
“He’s awesome,” Avs forward Ross Colton said. “He works super hard. He battles. He’s great in front of the net on the power play, great on the PK. I think he’s just one of those guys that can play in all situations, and he dominates at whatever he’s doing.”
This season, the Avs are once again a terrifying machine when Nichushkin plays — 11-1-5, or a 130-point pace. But when he sustained an injury this time, the Avalanche did not stumble.
Colorado just went 7-0-1 without Nichushkin, extending its lead in the league standings and having a historic opening to the 2025-26 campaign.
“We’ve got a deep team, a deep organization,” Colton said. “We’ve called guys up that have played well. It’s just the ‘next man up’ mentality that we have in this room. We trust everyone in here. We just know the work ethic that we’ve got to play with on a nightly basis.
“When we come to the rink, it doesn’t really matter who is on the board. We’ve just got to go out there and play our game.”
The Avs have been relatively healthy this season, at least compared to the previous three seasons. Good players have missed significant time — Mackenzie Blackwood missed the first 12 games, Samuel Girard has missed 15 and Logan O’Connor has yet to suit up. Even one of the top-six replacements, rookie Gavin Brindley, joined the injured list.
But there were times in recent years when it wasn’t just Nichushkin among the top players on the team who were missing. And those teams weren’t as deep as this one.
Now, an Avalanche team that is 13-0-3 in its past 16 games and outscored its opponents 73-33 in that span gets one of the best two-way forwards in the NHL back in the lineup. Nichushkin’s return means the club’s top-six forwards are all healthy again, though it remains to be seen if Colton or captain Gabe Landeskog will shift down to the third line to make room for the imposing Russian.
“Obviously, he’s a key component to our team,” Avs defenseman Josh Manson said. “You look at some of those games that were tighter, and maybe he makes a difference. But I think it speaks to our depth and the way we are rolling right now.
“But even going 7-0-1, I still want him back in the lineup.”
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