The Colorado Avalanche announced today that they have activated forward Nikita Prishchepov off injured reserve and reassigned him to their AHL affiliate, the Colorado Eagles.
Prishchepov has been on injured reserve for all of 2025-26 due to an undisclosed injury. With this transaction, the Avalanche have returned the 21-year-old to the team he spent most of the 2024-25 season with.
2024-25 was Prishchepov’s first season as a member of the Avalanche organization, as he was selected in the seventh round, 217th overall at the 2024 draft as a double-overage player. He had scored 22 goals and 67 points in 63 games with Victoriaville of the QMJHL in 2023-24, and had scored at decent but not stellar rates in the two seasons prior to that.
Due to his status as a seventh-round rookie playing his first year of professional hockey, expectations for Prishchepov’s rookie season were low. He exceeded them by playing in 10 NHL games and scoring 23 points in 51 games in the AHL.
Now healthy and back in the minors, Prishchepov will be tasked with building on his solid rookie season and making a more concentrated push for an NHL call-up over the course of 2025-26.