Nuke may have some legal issues and not be able to play, on top of that I think you need a better second line center to be competitive when the playoffs come around.

Any new information other than the official police report that indicated no criminal activity regarding nuke? Or just speculation?

DNVR podcast made it sound like he would have been back for round 2. Not sure what info they have though.

Speculation for the most part, but it seems a little fishy with her being Ukrainian, I think this gets looked into much harder in the next couple months.

Okay, good, thought I missed some new info. Yup, fishy situation to say the least. Most of all dissapointing that he puts himself in a bad position during the playoffs.. He and the avs owes us fans a real good explanation this off season.

I'd trust that info drop by them. DNVR's AJ, Jesse Meg and now CHN's Evan(formerly dnvr) have been reporting(with credentials) for years now and have developed relationships within the org. They give out what insider info they can without betraying the Avs trust. I mean, reg listeners know that Sakic listens to the pod. lol

For sure. They are one of the absolute best places to get Avs info. But they didn't give much more than a line stating they expected him back in round 2. Nobody else has dropped that info anywhere as far as I can find, but I definitely believe it. Seems to line up with McFarland saying that they hoped Val would be a big part of the team going forward (Meaning, I'd expect no legal issues from the situation). Not sure if/when we will get an explanation on what happened. But it doesn't really matter to me if he comes back and plays like himself next fall. His physicality and skating ability is IMO the most important piece to the Avs success not named MacK, Mikko, or Makar.