Landeskog Wins Messier Leadership Award and Masterton Trophy After Injury-Marred Season

Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog won the Mark Messier NHL Leadership Award and the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, the league announced Tuesday. The Messier award goes 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.

Input comes from team personnel and others around the NHL, with Mark Messier making the final selection.

The Masterton award recognizes the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. Members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association vote on that trophy. Landeskog, a left winger, is the third-longest-serving captain in the NHL behind Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby and Washington's Alexander Ovechkin, the NHL's all-time leading goal scorer.

The 33-year-old has spent his entire career with the Avalanche. He missed the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons and the 2024-25 regular season while recovering from a chronic knee injury. Landeskog returned to playing in April 2025 on a conditioning assignment with the Colorado Eagles before rejoining the Avalanche ahead of the 2025 playoffs.

In the 2025-26 season, Landeskog scored 14 goals and recorded 35 points in 60 games. He missed time in January and February after sustaining another injury but returned to captain Sweden's national team at the Olympics. With Landeskog back in the lineup, the Avalanche finished the regular season with the NHL's best record at 55-16-11 and 121 points, winning the Presidents' Trophy.

Colorado swept the Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the 2026 playoffs, defeated the Minnesota Wild in five games in the second round, and was swept by the Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference finals.