There’s another positive sign for Gabriel Landeskog’s Avs return

Any Colorado Avalanche fans hoping to see Gabriel Landeskog take the ice again soon may take solace in Monday’s news that Lonzo Ball will return to the NBA on Wednesday.

While there are likely not many crossover Avs and Chicago Bulls fans, what the former UCLA Bruins point guard is attempting is to come from a rare double cartilage transplant procedure. Ball has not played pro hoops since January of 2022, missing the second half of that season for the Bulls and the last two since. The surgery, which was performed by Bulls orthopedic surgeon Dr. Brian Cole from Rush Hospital in Chicago, took place in March of 2023. It was the third procedure on his left knee in about a calendar year.

The 26-year-old plans to play for the Bulls in the preseason this week. The former No. 2 overall pick and former All-Rookie Team member first tore the meniscus in his knee way back in 2018.

If this all sounds somewhat familiar to Avs fans it’s because Ball’s situation is about the closest pro sports has seen to the one Landeskog is trying to recover from. While the two are different, Landeskog also underwent the rare cartilage transplant procedure and Cole performed it. The Avs captain had the procedure in May of 2023, last playing in June of 2022. He first suffered a knee issue all the way back in September of 2020.

Ball is such an important figure for Landeskog because what the two are each trying to do is frankly somewhat unprecedented. While there is some data that shows the surgery works 70% of the time on athletes this is the highest rung of pro sports and nobody has come back from this injury yet. Festus Ezeli was maybe the closest, getting back to the NBA’s top minor league for two games but he never played in the NBA after undergoing a cartilage transplant. In the hockey world, Cole also did the surgery on Marc Methot, who never played in the NHL again after getting it done.

“I’m sure that’s a guy I’ll be checking in with once in a while,” Landeskog said in the past about Ball. “It’s nice to relate to somebody and for somebody to know what I’m talking about.”

Landeskog first suffered the issue when Cale Makar cut his knee during Game 6 of a playoff series against the Stars. Landy missed that Game 7, which was a loss, and came back to play 54 of the Avs’ 56 games in the COVID-shortened 2020-2021 season and another 10 in the playoffs. In 2022-2023 Landeskog played another 51 regular-season before getting knee surgery. Landeskog returned for the playoffs where he tallied 22 points in 20 games en route to the Avs’ first title since 2001. Similarly, Ball played on and off for years and quite successfully while dealing with his own knee issue.

Landeskog has now missed the last 197 regular-season games dating back to the 2021-22 season but had those 20 games of magic in between. The longtime captain of the Avs is sixth in career games played for the franchise with 738, eighth in goals at 238, and eighth in points at 571—getting past last season by his current teammates in some of those marks.