And so continues the saga of Valeri Nichushkin.
The Avalanche winger, who is currently suspended until November while he’s in stage three of the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program, is still under contract with the Colorado Avalanche until 2030. With all the drama surrounding the winger, it’s fair to wonder if he’ll ever play another game with the organization. According to a former Russian National Team scout who claims to be close to Nichushkin, he almost certainly will.
Sergey Fedotov, who stated back in January that Nichushkin entered the program due to sleep problems, isn’t beating around the bush right now. He says that when November rolls around, the winger will be back with the Avalanche.
“According to Nichushkin, the picture is 95% clear: he returns in November fully ready, trains, works with a psychologist and continues the season. That’s it,” writes Sports.Ru. “In November, Valery Nichushkin returns to Colorado in good shape and starts playing. There are no other questions. He has all the prohibitions on exchanges.”
There are some other interesting nuggets in the article, but again, I would take everything with a grain of salt at the moment.
According to Fedotov, Nathan MacKinnon calls the Russian forward at least once a week to check up on him. He also states that the initiative for the Avalanche to get rid of Big Val came from the owner. There’s also this portion after he mentions that Nichushkin will definitely be back with Colorado…
“Although there are some players and people in the management who would probably like to solve this issue differently.”
Whatever that means. Again, this is all just one guy talking, so take everything you read with a grain of salt.
Listen. There’s still a lot to play out when it comes to this saga. As of now, we know the Avalanche can’t terminate his contract, and it sounds like they have no interest in trading him, as they want to help rehabilitate him. Once he gets reinstated, who knows what will actually happen, but there’s no doubt the Avalanche are a better team with him in the lineup than without him. It might just come down to that.
Avalanche training camp opens in less than a month, but Nichushkin (obviously) will not be there. The suspension was announced on May 13, so we can only assume that the six months is up on Nov. 13. There’s also the fact that the NHL and NHLPA have to clear Nichushkin to return to playing, which may not happen immediately.
We’ll continue to monitor this situation, which I’m sure will be a hot topic when everyone is made available to the media.