Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog was named to Sweden’s initial roster for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation announced today. The 2026 Olympics will be held Feb. 6-22, 2026 in Milan and Cortina, Italy.
Landeskog, 32, played in his first NHL game in 1,032 days in Game 3 of the First Round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs (April 23) after missing the entire 2022-23 and 2023-24 campaigns as well as the 2024-25 regular season due to knee surgery. The absence from game action was the fourth-longest in NHL history among players with at least 700 appearances, and marked just the third time a team captain went over 1,000 days without an NHL game. Landeskog’s return saw him finish as the 2024-25 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy runner-up, awarded to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.
The 6-foot-1, 215-pound forward dressed in five games for Colorado in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs and chipped in four points (1g/3a). In his postseason career, Landeskog has recorded 71 points (28g/43a) in 74 career games – all with the Avalanche. He suited up in all 20 contests in the 2021-22 postseason where he tallied 22 points (11g/11a) en route to capturing the Stanley Cup. The championship performance made him the fourth European born and trained captain to hoist the Stanley Cup.
Named captain of the Avalanche on September 4, 2012, Landeskog has spent his entire career with franchise. He’s collected 571 points (248g/323a) in 738 regular-season games. His 14 consecutive seasons as captain entering 2025-26 trails only Joe Sakic (16 consecutive seasons, 17 overall) for the longest such run in Avalanche/Nordiques history, and is the NHL’s third-longest tenured captain behind Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby (19 seasons) and Washington’s Alex Ovechkin (17 seasons).
The Stockholm, Sweden, native has represented his country at the 2014 Olympics, the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, four IIHF World Championships (2012, 2013, 2017, 2019), the 2011 IIHF World Junior Championship and the 2009 IIHF Under-18 World Championship. He won a gold medal at the 2013 and 2017 IIHF World Championship and helped his country to the silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics. Despite missing the last three seasons, Landeskog’s 571 career points rank eighth among Swedish-born players since he entered the NHL in 2011-12.
Selected in the first round (second overall) by the Avalanche in the 2011 NHL Draft, Landeskog ranks among all-time Avalanche/Nordiques record holders in game played (6th), points (9th), goals (8th), assists (9th), game-winning goals (43, T-6th) and overtime goals (7, T-3rd). In postseason play, he finds his name in the top-8 in goals, assists and points. He’s turned in eight different 50-point seasons, three separate 60-point campaigns and one season of over 70 points (34g/41a) in 2018-19 when he set career-highs in goals and assists.
A recipient of the 2012 Calder Trophy as the NHL's rookie of the year, Landeskog became the third Swedish-born player to win the Calder. He followed Peter Forsberg (1994-95 with Quebec) and Daniel Alfredsson (1995-96 with Ottawa) and has since been joined by Elias Pettersson (2018-19 with Vancouver). The Avs’ forward finished tied for first among rookies with 52 points (22g/30a) while appearing in all 82 games that year and was awarded the rookie scoring title on the basis of more goals.
Landeskog was selected to his first NHL All-Star Game in 2018-19, the year in which he set career highs in goals and assists. He became only the second left wing in Avalanche history to reach the 30-goal mark, (Valeri Kamensky, 38, in 1995-96) and hit the milestone again with 30 goals in 2021-22.
The selection to the 2026 Olympics makes Landeskog the second player to be named to Team Sweden twice while playing for the Avalanche (Forsberg).
