The Avalanche will welcome back a key forward tonight, the team announced (Twitter link). Ross Colton was activated outside of LTIR. To make room for him in the active squad, winger Jonathan Drouin was placed on injured reserve retroactively to November 23rd.

Colton will return tonight against Detroit after missing the last 17 games. The 28-year-old was placed on LTIR earlier this week, but because it was retroactive to the end of October when he first sustained his foot injury, he has already missed the required 10 games and 24 days to return to the lineup.

Before he was injured, Colton was off to a good start, scoring eight goals and one assist while averaging 18:38 per game, more than five minutes more than his career ATOI average. He is expected to start on the second line, but head coach Jared Bednar has indicated he would like to move Colton to the front line in the near future.

As for Drouin, he missed the last two weeks with an upper body injury, but has been able to skate the last few days. The retroactive placement means he has already missed the required seven days to return to the lineup, so he can be activated as soon as he is cleared by team doctors.

His second season with the Avs didn’t go as well as his first. After scoring a career-best 56 points with 19 goals and 37 assists in the 2023-24 season, Drouin has only played in five games due to upper body injuries. While he was relatively productive in those games with two goals and two assists, this certainly wasn’t the start to the season he wanted, especially since it’s another year of his contract after signing a one-year, $2.5 million deal had signed to which he could return to the Avs in free agency in the summer.