Colorado Avalanche Captain Gabriel Landeskog didn’t start skating until Feb. 20 last year. Everyone knows what happened after that, as he never made it back and ultimately decided for cartilage replacement surgery on his right knee in May.

Well, it’s Feb. 17 right now, Landeskog has been skating for over a month now, and I have to say…he’s moving a lot better than I expected him to be moving.

Granted, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen him skate, so we don’t have daily progress reports on him, but I wasn’t expecting this. The Avalanche moved their practice back 30 minutes, and a full crowd at Family Sports were treated to the Captain moving and shaking on the ice.

Last year, he struggled making any movement on his right leg, the leg that has all the issues. Here, you can see him making crossovers to the right and moving pretty well. Certainly better than I expected to see on this Saturday afternoon. I didn’t get any other videos, but he was also testing his right leg out with some stops and starts, something we didn’t see a ton of last year.

There’s still a long ways to go, and he won’t be coming back for the regular season. After all, the salary cap won’t allow that, but I’m a lot more encouraged with his progress after what I saw today. I’d still tell everyone to temper their expectations for a return in the playoffs, but I feel a little better about that happening after seeing how he was moving on Saturday.

Landeskog joined the team at the very end of the road trip in Tampa Bay. He had been on the East Coast rehabbing his injury, according to Jared Bednar. His family was in attendance for practice, and after he was done skating, he went over and handed his two kids some pucks. The fans in attendance made sure to give him a loud ovation as he got off the ice, as he did not stick around for the team portion of practice.