Minnesota Wild forward Ryan Hartman reveals why Landeskog went after him on Thursday
This year's preseason has been, by all appearances, a more fiery preseason than we may be used to seeing - likely due, at least in part, to teams ramping up for a full 82-game schedule, which we have not seen since 2018-19.
One team who is feeling a little extra pressure to have a strong year to prepare themselves to go on a seemingly long overdue postseason run is the Colorado Avalanche.
The Avs entered the 2021 postseason as the NHL's top team and one of the betting favourites to win the Stanley Cup. However, after completing a sweep of the St. Louis Blues in round 1, the Avs came up short against the Vegas Golden Knights in round two, losing 4-consecutive games after jumping out to an early 2-0 series lead to lose the series 4-2.
On Thursday a hungry Avs team took on the Minnesota Wild in preseason action. Colorado would walk away with the 6-4 victory, but captain Gabriel Landeskog certainly didn't treat this one like a preseason tilt.
During the 2nd period, Landeskog pummeled a downed Ryan Hartman, who was able to scramble back to his feet, but the altercation did not end there. A red-hot Landeskog tried to fight his way through the officials to get his hands on Hartman before each player was issued a a roughing minor and a 10-minute misconduct and sent to their respective locker rooms to cool off.
On Friday, we received some clarity as to what may have happened on the play to get Landeskog so fired up, as Hartman told The Athletic's Michael Russo that a hit on Nazem Kadri was what had caused the altercation.
"Hit Kadri. Guess you can't hit these days," said Hartman on Friday.
A total of 66 penalty minutes were issued in the contest, including three 10-minute misconducts in the 2nd period - one to Hartman, one to Landeskog and, later on in the period, one to Kadri.
These two teams will meet again on Monday, October 4th, this time, with the Wild playing host.
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Kyle Connor | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Alex Tuch | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Owen Power | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Michael Bunting | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Drew Helleson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jirí Kulich | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Isac Lundestrom | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Vladislav Namestnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Nino Niederreiter | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Gabriel Vilardi | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jason Zucker | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Leo Carlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nikolaj Ehlers | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ross Johnston | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Evgeni Malkin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Morrissey | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Cole Perfetti | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Bryan Rust | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mark Scheifele | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Trevor Zegras | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Complete stats | ||||
| STANDINGS 2024-2025 | ||||||
TOP 10 | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | |
Jets | 20 | 17 | 3 | - | 34 | |
Wild | 19 | 13 | 3 | 3 | 29 | |
Hurricanes | 19 | 14 | 5 | - | 28 | |
Devils | 22 | 13 | 7 | 2 | 28 | |
Capitals | 19 | 13 | 5 | 1 | 27 | |
Golden Knights | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 26 | |
Maple Leafs | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 26 | |
Rangers | 18 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 25 | |
Panthers | 20 | 12 | 7 | 1 | 25 | |
Flames | 20 | 11 | 6 | 3 | 25 | |
| Conference | Cumulative | ||||||