The Colorado Avalanche still have a couple big question marks surrounding their line combinations, but one of their prospects might have an inside track to get some good minutes to prove himself. No, this isn’t about Calum Ritchie – who the team also has high hopes for . Instead, former sixth-round pick Nikolai Kovalenko could be in line to get a good audition in the early stages of the season.
With Gabriel Landeskog due to miss the early part of the season rehabbing from knee surgery , and Valeri Nichushkin still suspended through the league’s player assistance program, that leaves a Kovalenko-sized hole in the top six. He should get every chance to prove he belongs there. Kovalenko’s Steady Improvement Kovalenko is a 24-year-old Russian forward, but was actually born in the United States.
His birthplace is Raleigh, N.C., as Kovalenko’s father, Andrei Kovalenko , was playing for the Carolina Hurricanes at the time.
The winger was taken by the Avalanche in the sixth round of the 2018 Draft, and has seen his game improve to the point where he made his NHL debut in last season’s playoffs for the team. He hasn’t played a regular season game, but that should change quickly once the puck drops on the 2024-25 campaign. He played much of his minor league hockey with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), but his breakthrough came over the last two seasons when playing with Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod.
He played 98 games over those two seasons, totaling.