Avalanche’s Valeri Nichushkin has been suspended for at least six months

DENVER – Colorado Avalanche forward Valeri Nichushkin has been placed in Phase 3 of the NHL/NHL Players’ Association’s Player Assistance Program, the league announced Monday, just hours before the team’s playoff game against the Dallas Stars.

Nichushkin will be suspended without pay for at least six months under the terms of the Player Support Program. According to a statement from the NHL and the NHLPA, he can then apply for reinstatement.

No further information was provided as to why Nichushkin, who was on the ice with the team during the morning skate, was added to the program.

With Nichushkin out, Colorado, which trailed Dallas 2-1 in the series, traded forward Jonathan Drouin, who returned to the lineup after a lengthy absence. Drouin had missed all of Colorado’s postseason games before Monday after suffering a lower-body injury in the April 18 regular-season finale.

A league source told ESPN that the player assistance program includes four phases. Level 1 is the first inpatient treatment, for which there is no penalty. Under Level 2, which follows a violation of the Level 1 treatment plan, a player may be suspended without pay during the active treatment phase and then be eligible for reinstatement.

Level 3, which follows a violation of the Level 2 treatment plan, provides for suspension without pay for a minimum of six months. From this point on a player may be entitled to reinstatement. Level 4 results in a suspension of at least one year following a violation of the Level 3 treatment plan and reintegration is not guaranteed.

For Nichushkin, this latest absence from the Avalanche is the third in the last 13 months.

The 29-year-old Nichushkin’s most recent absence from the Avalanche came in mid-January, when he was placed in the player assistance program for undisclosed reasons. At the time of his absence it was announced that he would be out indefinitely.

Nichushkin resumed his career with the Avalanche in late February before returning to the lineup in a 2-1 overtime win on March 8 against the Minnesota Wild.

His first absence from the Avalanche came last April, when he missed the final five games of a first-round series that ended with the Avs losing to the Seattle Kraken.

At the time of his absence, the team said that Nichushkin left for personal reasons. His absence came after police officers responded to a call at the team’s hotel in Seattle the afternoon before Game 3 of their quarterfinal series between the Avalanche and Kraken.

A 28-year-old woman was in an ambulance when officers arrived, and paramedics were told to speak with a doctor from the avalanche team to get more details.

The police report, obtained by ESPN, among others, states that the Avalanche doctor told officers that team employees found the woman while examining Nichushkin. The team doctor told police that the woman appeared to be intoxicated and was too drunk to have left the hotel “in a rideshare or taxi” and that she needed emergency services.

When the Avalanche returned to preseason camp, Nichushkin told reporters: “I think we should shut it down. It’s just a new season. That’s what we need to focus on.”

Nichushkin was a first-round pick by the Stars in 2013 and spent four seasons with the club that drafted him. He scored 23 goals and 74 points in 223 games and never quite reached the heights expected of a first-round pick.

The Avalanche signed him to a one-year contract worth $850,000 at the start of the 2019-2020 season. Nichushkin worked his way up from a position in the bottom six to one of the team’s most important players. This led to him signing a two-year contract worth $2.5 million per year in 2020, before signing an eight-year contract worth $6.125 million per year starting at the start of the 2022–2023 season .