After missing 11 games with a mysterious upper-body injury, Artturi Lehkonen will return to the lineup on Thursday night. The Colorado Avalanche have been bringing players back throughout the road trip. Lehkonen will now be the fourth player to return from injury on this road trip alone. The others are Gabriel Landeskog, Ross Colton, and Logan O’Connor. With just these four players, the Avs are a much better team and will be harder to beat. This leaves Nic Roy as the only remaining player with an injury.

What Lehkonen brings

Lehkonen will bring even more net-front presence that has been missing while he and Landeskog were gone. The Finn typically waits by the net for secondary chances and picks them up for goals. Secondary chances have been an issue after the Olympic Break for the Avalanche.

He is also another forward who does not give up on the forecheck. If he is on the same line as Valeri Nichushkin, the two are a dangerous pair for opponents. The next line on the ice would have another hard forechecking line in Colton, Nazem Kari, and O’Connor.

The power play will get more dangerous

Lehkonen’s return will create one problem, and it will be a good problem. Where do you put him on the power play? Before he was injured, he was on the first unit. But that was also before the trade deadline. Kadri has now joined the unit and has been having nothing but success. There are two scenarios that I can see for him: 1) drop Landeskog to the second unit or 2) drop Colton from the second unit and add Lehkonen.

What happened?

It is unclear what happened to Lehkonen. He left the game against the Los Angeles Kings on March 2nd after playing only 3:21 of ice time. He took a puck high near his shoulder and then left the game.

As mentioned with O’Connor’s return, this will provide endless possibilities for line combinations. The middle-six for the Avalanche will be players that will be a pain to skate against now. If fans weren’t excited with the O’Connor return, they should be now with an almost healthy team for the first time in three seasons.