"Landy! Landy! Landy!"
Over 21,000 spectators in Ball Arena in Denver welcomed Landeskog back. And it was really a long time ago. After 1,032 days of absence due to massive injury problems with multiple knee operations, the Swede played NHL hockey again.
He last played for his Colorado on June 26, 2022.
A day and an event he will not forget. Then he lifted the Stanley Cup trophy after leading his team to victory over Tampa Bay in the final.
For the first time on Thursday night, he was back with his old team on the ice again, in the third quarterfinal match against Dallas.
Played in front of the family
In the stands sat his wife Melissa and their children, Luke and Linnea.
In an interview that the club published on X just before the drop, as Expressen reports, Landeskog talked about his feelings.
I feel surprisingly calm right now. The butterflies and nerves will come, but I'm tagged. I've thought about this moment so many times over the past three years.
At the press conference afterwards, Landeskog was emotional when he talked about the welcome in the arena.
I don't know if I can describe what happened in my body at that moment. But to get to meet that love in the first match in so long... it's a memory for life for me.
Landeskog started in an attacking line as left forward with superstar Nathan MacKinnon as center and Martin Necas to the right.
The match went to overtime after 1-1 at full time. Then Landeskog had played for nearly 12 minutes. In total, he played over 13 minutes.
Fell in overtime
Dallas cleared four minutes of power play before Tyler Seguin decided with his 2-1 goal. This means that Dallas also leads the match series with the same numbers.
Landeskog became the fifth player in NHL to play at least 700 matches and then make a comeback after at least 1,000 days. The last to do so was former club teammate Peter Forsberg.
Earlier, Landeskog had played two matches with the farm team Colorado Eagles in AHL, where he scored a goal and an assist.
He had no shot on goal tonight. The next match is decided on Saturday, also in Denver.
It went decent tonight, the skating felt good, but I hope to be able to play better then, says Landeskog.
