Necas' breakout year with Avs includes 100-point season, playoff success and locker-room pranks

DENVER (AP) — Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog arrived at his locker stall and quickly noticed his shoe had been restrung in reverse.

He knew the prankster in an instant — Martin Necas.

The forward from the Czech Republic feels more and more at home in Colorado since being acquired in a January 2025 deal that sent fan favorite Mikko Rantanen to Carolina ( he's now in Dallas ). Necas had a breakout season, too, as he skated on the same line with star center Nathan MacKinnon.

Finally, Necas feels up to speed. Like, literally up to speed.

Already fast, Necas worked on his explosiveness in the offseason in order to keep up with MacKinnon. It paid off with Necas' first 100-point regular season (38 goals and 62 assists in 78 games).

“He’s been huge for us all year,” said Landeskog, whose team leads the Minnesota Wild 2-0 heading into Game 3 of their second-round playoff series on Saturday. “He’s been super consistent. He’s been dynamic. He’s been dangerous.”

For that, Necas credits the advice of coach Jared Bednar, who told him to focus on getting into the middle of the ice more once he's inside the offensive zone. Of his 206 shots, 54 were from the high-danger zone in front of the net, according to NHL research.

“That really helped me, what Bedsy kind of taught me,” Necas said. “Not just to play on the outside, but be more on the inside.”

Another area of emphasis was defense. Bednar has been stressing that over and over, given that Necas, MacKinnon and fellow linemate Artturi Lehkonen frequently go against some of the top players on opposing teams.

“He’s put in a lot of hard work to be a trusted player defensively,” Bednar said. “He buys into that. His game has grown.”

Necas became only the third Czech player in NHL history to notch 100 points in a season, joining Jaromir Jagr (five times) and David Pastrnak (four). Necas got stronger as the season went along, too, scoring 16 goals in 26 games following his return from the Olympics.

About his No. 88 sweater — it's a nod to the player he idolized as a kid, Alex Ovechkin, who wears No. 8. When Necas was a teenager and a player in the Czech league, that number was taken.

“So I just doubled up,” said Necas, the 12th overall pick by Carolina in 2017.

About playing alongside MacKinnon, he labeled it as “great," because “he's one of the best players in the world," he said.

But it's also a challenge.

“We play with a lot of pace, so obviously you've got to think quick,” Necas said. "Once we built a chemistry, it’s way nicer and way easier to know where each other are.”

MacKinnon concurs.

“He's been unreal this season,” he said.

Last season, Necas had a so-so postseason with one goal and four assists in a first-round series loss to the Stars. His so-so production, though, was only magnified by what Rantanen did on the ice in that series — five goals and seven assists, including a hat trick in Game 7.

Necas went to work in the gym over the summer, focusing on exercises to make him more explosive on the ice. He increased his fitness level as well.

“Because you don’t want to peak in the first period and then slow down,” said the 27-year-old Necas, who has a goal and six assists through six playoff games this season.

The Avalanche signed Necas in October to an eight-year contract extension through 2034 and worth $92 million. When his contract kicks in next season, Necas will count $11.5 million against the salary cap annually, about $500,000 a year less than what Rantanen signed for with rival Dallas.

Necas knows this will be his hockey home, and MacKinnon & Co. his teammates, for years. It's peace of mind.

“Last year, I didn’t really count it as a year here, because it was so new and so different,” Necas said. “But this year, coming into the camp, everything felt right. It really felt like this is my home. It's always nicer to play that way.”

Case in point — the jokes on Landeskog, his locker-room neighbor at Ball Arena.

“What can I say about getting to know Marty this year? The answer is right there,” Landeskog said, pointing at his shoe that was the target of some friendly hijinks. "I don’t know how I’m going to retie this shoe now. So that’s what he spent his morning doing.

“I love Marty. Love him as a teammate, love him as an overall friend but also as a competitor.”

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Colorado Avalanche's Devon Toews (7) celebrates after his goal with Nathan MacKinnon, third from right, and Martin Necas (88) as Los Angeles Kings' Anze Kopitar (11) reacts during the third period of Game 4 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series Sunday, April 26, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Scott Strazzante)

Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar, right, celebrates his goal with center Nathan MacKinnon, left, and center Martin Necas during the second period of Game 3 in the first round of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs against the Los Angeles Kings, Thursday, April 23, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Colorado Avalanche's Devon Toews (7) celebrates his goal with Nathan MacKinnon (29) and Martin Necas (88) against the Los Angeles Kings during the third period of Game 4 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series Sunday, April 26, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Scott Strazzante)

Colorado Avalanche center Martin Necas, left, looks on as Minnesota Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson allows a goal by Colorado center Nathan MacKinnon in the third period of Game 2 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup second-round playoff series Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

ATLANTA (AP) — An Atlanta-based appeals court has rejected a no-bond policy implemented by the Trump administration for people in immigration proceedings, further deepening a divide among federal appeals courts about whether people can be kept in detention while their cases are pending.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the 2-1 ruling Wednesday. The 2nd Circuit had already reached a similar conclusion in April, while the 8th and 5th circuit courts previously upheld the policy that has been in effect since July. Meanwhile, a 7th Circuit panel on Tuesday split three ways on the policy, with one judge rejecting the Trump administration policy, another agreeing with it and the third declining to weigh in on the matter.

With the circuit split deepening, the U.S. Supreme Court could be called upon to resolve the issue.

The appeal decided by the 11th Circuit stemmed from lower court rulings in the cases of two Mexican men who had been living in the United States without authorization since 2019 and 2015 and were arrested during traffic stops in Florida in September and placed in deportation proceedings.

The Department of Homeland Security policy has been denying bond hearings to people in immigration detention, including those who have been in the country for years without any criminal history. Previously, most noncitizens without a criminal record who were not arrested at the border were allowed to seek a bond hearing while their immigration cases were pending.

Bond was often granted if the person was not deemed a flight risk. Mandatory detention was generally reserved for people who had just entered the U.S.

The Department of Homeland Security “strongly disagrees with the Eleventh Circuit panel and is confident in its legal position regarding mandatory detention,” an agency spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The agency cited opinions from the Board of Immigration Appeals, the other two courts of appeals that sided with it and the dissent in this case.

"President Trump and Secretary Mullin are now enforcing the law as it was actually written to keep America safe,” the statement said.

The 11th Circuit ruling was written by Senior Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus, an appointee of former Democratic President Bill Clinton, and joined by Circuit Judge Robin Rosenbaum, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, also a Democrat. Trump-appointed Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa dissented.

The ruling says the majority was “unpersuaded by the Government's re-interpretation” of a section of federal law that it says limits detention without bond people who are “seeking admission” into the country.

“Simply put, the language that Congress has chosen to use does not grant to the Executive unfettered authority to detain, without the possibility of bond, every unadmitted alien present in the country,” the ruling says. Reading the words in the statute, “it appears to us that Congress has instead preserved the longstanding border-interior distinction for the purposes of detention, a posiition it has taken for over a hundred years.”

Lagoa disagreed with the majority opinion, finding, “There is no dispute that unlawfully present aliens are applicants for admission pursuant to the deeming provision.”

“The majority’s argument amounts to the claim that the provision fits arriving aliens better. Maybe so,” she wrote, but added that “a more comfortable fit does not allow us to read an exception” into the law.

Trump administration lawyers have argued that the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 supports the mandatory detention policy. That law simplified the process for deporting new arrivals who lacked authorization to be in the country, but a different law allowed people already in the country to ask an immigration judge for bond.

But Todd Lyons, acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in July that all people in deportation proceedings would be treated the same as new arrivals.

Unable to ask an immigration judge for bond, detainees are using habeas corpus petitions in federal court to challenge their detention. That is creating a crushing workload for the federal courts, with more than 30,000 lawsuits filed by people detained without bond as the Trump administration pursues mass deportations.

FILE - The Department of Homeland Security logo during a news conference in Washington, Feb. 25, 2015. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)