Flynn’s Take: What Will Change With Valeri Nichushkin in Avs Lineup (+)

It’s T-minus two games until the Avalanche get Valeri Nichushkin back in the lineup. He is expected to play against the Washington Capitals on Friday and the team is looking forward to his return.

“I think Val is one of those guys — he’s going to put the work in, and you got to trust that. If he wants to lean on us, we can always help him,” Cale Makar said. “And at the same time, we got to do our job, and he’s got to do his job, make sure he’s individually ready to go, and mentally on the right track.”

The 29-year-old forward was removed from the team and placed in Stage 3 of the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program on May 13. There was much speculation that he would not be welcomed back to the team since this was his third incident — two that came during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

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Nathan MacKinnon said on media day before the season started that nothing needed to be said when Nichushkin returned to the team and it would be glad to have his skill level back in the lineup to help win games.

He recently rejoined the team for practice and is expected to be reinstated from his six-month suspension on Nov. 15. Head coach Jared Bednar said the team is excited to have him back but does not plan on altering the dynamic with his return.

“I don’t want us to change. I just want us to get better at what we’re doing. The same kind of mindset that we have something to prove, that we’re going to show up and be relentless regardless of time and score, that we’re going to put teams under duress and force them to work through the pressure that we can provide as a team,” Bednar said. “I just think that you add more skilled players into the lineup, you’re going to make more plays. You’re going to score more if you have the same sort of tenacity that we have right now.”

Nichushkin is not the only key player the team is glad to have back. Artturi Lehkonen returned from offseason shoulder surgery last week and the Avs have won two of the three games since he’s been back in the lineup. Jonathan Drouin was injured in the first game of the season and is “close” to a return, according to Bednar. Ross Colton broke his foot from a blocked shot on Oct. 28 and is not expected back until mid-December.

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“It’s going to help us, help our team, and then we just kind of play together and not change the mindset. Because I feel like defensively, we have a good mindset,” Mikko Rantanen said last week about getting Lehkonen, Nichushkin and Drouin back in the lineup. “I think it’s been maybe offensive struggles, a little bit execution-wise, and not be able to score a couple times, the chances we create. But that’s going to come eventually with this team — we’ve seen in the past. We don’t get frustrated through that, so we want to lock it down defensively, and those three guys are also going to help with that.”

As one of the best two-way players in the league, Nichushkin scored at least a point in seven of eight playoff games last postseason for a total of 10. Although he missed two months of the 2023-24 regular season while in Stage 2 of the Player Assistance Program, he still managed to put up 53 points in 54 games. If he returns to the lineup in the same form he was when he left, his impact will be hard felt in a positive way to help the team win games — and that’s all it wants to do.