Gabriel Landeskog toiled day and night for nearly three years to get back to playing for the Avalanche.

He’s been recognized for his hard work.

Landeskog on Tuesday was announced as the winner of the 2026 Bill Masterton Trophy, earned by the NHL player who best exemplifies “the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.” The award is voted on by all the chapters of the professional hockey writers at the end of the regular season.

Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin and Winnipeg’s Jonathan Toews were the other finalists for the award.

In addition to winning the Masterton Trophy, Landeskog was named the winner of the Mark Messier Leadership Award, presented “to the player who exemplifies great leadership qualities to his team, on and off the ice, during the regular season and who plays a leading role in his community growing the game of hockey.”

“What Gabe means to the team and the city of Denver, it far exceeds what someone might think. What he brings on a daily basis to the locker room, off the ice (is extraordinary). It’s not just on the ice. There’s so much that goes into being a captain off the ice. He embodies all of that,” television analyst and former Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson said Tuesday on ESPN.

Landeskog’s story is well known at this point. The 33-year-old forward missed three full regular seasons due to a right knee injury after eventually led to cartilage transplant surgery in May 2023. Landeskog’s knee problems began in the bubble in 2020, when Cale Makar’s skate inadvertently sliced him above the right knee. He played through pain during the playoffs in 2022, skipping all practices and morning skates and only playing in games during the playoff run. After helping the Avalanche to the Stanley Cup on June 26, 2022, Landeskog did not play another NHL game until April 23, 2025.

Landeskog’s five-game playoff run in 2025 gave him a taste of what to expect going into his first training camp in four years. He made it through the 2026 season without missing a game due to any issues with his surgically repaired right knee, picking up 35 points in 60 games. He became the first NHL player to return to full-time action after having undergone a cartilage transplant procedure.

With Landeskog in the lineup, the Avalanche were a whopping 45-7-8 during the regular season, 10-9-3 without him.

“I think maybe my expectations were that it was going to be a game (off) here or there, maybe. I wouldn’t have been surprised if that was the case,” Landeskog told The Denver Gazette in December. “I feel like when you’re having days where you’re a little bit sore and stuff like that, come puck drop, you don’t really think about it and then you’re able to bounce back quickly for the next day.

“That’s been a pleasant surprise, how quickly I’ve been able to come back off of being a little bit sore postgame.”

Landeskog still endured some adversity this season.

On Jan. 4, Landeskog went full speed into the right goal post in Florida after losing an edge off the rush, taking the brunt of the impact with his ribs. While the team kept quiet on the injury, Landeskog eventually revealed he broke ribs due to the impact, which forced him to miss 14 games. He returned for the Olympics and impacted Team Sweden as a captain.

That wasn’t the only painful injury Landeskog dealt with.

On March 6, the winger took a Makar shot to an uncomfortable spot in the midsection. He completed the game, showing select reporters, including The Denver Gazette, the dent the shot made on his protective cup, but needed surgery afterward and missed the next seven games.

Landeskog returned late in the season and was one of Colorado’s more consistent scorers during its postseason run, picking up six goals and 11 points in 13 games. By the end of the season, having Landeskog back in the lineup was back to being what it always should have been.

Normal.

”It’s a void you can’t fill. We waited a long time for him to come back. It was worth the wait,” teammate Nathan MacKinnon said. “He worked extremely hard to get back.’’

And now he’s been recognized with an award for all that hard work.