Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in EnglishDALLAS — The last time Gabriel Landeskog suited up for the Colorado Avalanche, he was accepting the Stanley Cup from deputy commissioner Bill Daly and throwing it over his head in the ultimate triumph. That was on June 26, 2022, some 1,030 days ago. Since then it’s been nothing but surgeries and pain and setbacks and the sort of stubborn defiance that defined him during his playing days.Now it looks like he’s made it all the way back.After three years away from the game, and after four surgeries to repair his knee, Colorado’s captain was activated Monday afternoon and could return to the Avalanche lineup Monday night in Game 2 of their first-round series with the Dallas Stars. Landeskog has been on the brink of returning for a while now, and even got a two-game conditioning stint with the Avalanche’s AHL affiliate, posting a goal and an assist. With Ross Colton getting hurt in Game 1 and Avs coach Jared Bednar saying Monday morning that he was “not great,” it paved the way for Landeskog’s return.It’s hard to know how effective the 32-year-old will be, but the emotional lift his return will give the Avalanche is even harder to quantify. Just having him around for practices and morning skates lately has been a boost.“He’s just a super captain, super guy, great player,” defenseman Erik Johnson said Monday morning. “I think that any type of minutes he can give us is going to be huge, and just the boost in general is going to be awesome.”Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said the emotional lift of Landeskog’s eventual return is something tangible that can be felt throughout the room.“I think it does, especially with Landy,” Bednar said. “Guys know what he’s been through, they know exactly the road that he’s been on the last couple of years. It’s been a long one and it’s been a hard one. Guys are rooting for him, and I think that getting your leader back in the locker room certainly makes a difference in a bunch of different ways.”Landeskog initially hurt his right knee during the 2020 playoffs, when it was sliced by teammate Cale Makar’s skate after the defenseman had fallen to the ice. Landeskog had a procedure done that allowed him to return for the 2021-22 season, but the pain continued. Another surgery in March of 2022 allowed Landeskog to make it through Colorado’s Cup run — he had 11 goals and 11 assists in 20 games — but the pain persisted, and another operation didn’t fix it.In May of 2023, Landeskog resorted to cartilage-transplant surgery. Nearly two years later, he’s going to become the first NHL player to make it all the way back from such an operation. It’s been an arduous journey, one that was chronicled in a TNT docuseries, “A Clean Sheet.”“It’s mental toughness at its finest,” Johnson said. “He had multiple times where I’m sure he wanted to pull the plug and didn’t think it was getting better, and stuck with it. I know he wanted to do it for the team and his family and for himself, just to prove that somebody could come back from that injury. At some point, every surgery is a first of its kind. So I think maybe he’s paving the way for guys down the road that have this injury to say that, ‘Gabe Landeskog did it, and so could I.’ I’m proud of him, He’s done just a ton of work that no one saw. Just the epitome of class and mental toughness and grit and determination and all those words that come from a great success story like his.”(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
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