Denver, CO

Blue-chip Avalanche prospect could soon join the team

Published

2 years ago

March 18, 2024

Blue-chip Avalanche prospect could soon join the team

Nikolai Kovalenko is in Denver, could that mean the Russian forward could soon be joining the Colorado Avalanche?

The 24-year-old was a sixth-round pick of the Avs in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft was named the fifth-best player on Mile High Hockey’s preseason 25 under 25, placing behind players like Cale Makar and the now-traded Bowen Byram. Kovalenko is a five-foot-ten, 185-pound winger who can also play center. Playing in Russia’s KHL for Nizhny Novgorod Torpedo tallied over 100 points in 113 games including the postseason. This year with Torpedo was his seventh in the KHL, spending most of his career with Yaroslavl Lokomotiv. In the past, Kovalenko featured on Russia’s World Junior team in 2019 which won Bronze.

In recognition of Kovalenko’s standout out play Torpedo terminated their alternate captain’s contract so he could sign an entry-level deal with the Avs. Coloraod loaned him back to his Russian team for the year but now that his season in the KHL is over, Kovalenko could seemingly be days from his NHL debut. And he shared on Instagram that he landed in Denver on Sunday.

Nikolai Kovalenko has arrived in Denver….. #Avs #GoAvsGo @TheRinkColorado pic.twitter.com/YmCXBmSIvz
— Brennan Vogt (@brennan_vogt) March 18, 2024
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Kovalenko would be following in his father’s footsteps who not only played in the NHL but was an original member of the Avalanche, following the team from Quebec City. After just 26 games in Denver, Andrei Kovalenko was sent back to Quebec to play for Montreal in the deal that brought Patrick Roy to Colorado. Andrei tallied 147 points in 210 games with the Nordiques/Avalanche.

Toward the end of his NHL career, Andrei was on the Hurricanes which is why Nikolai was born in Carolina.

First 🥅 of the year for Captain Nikolai Kovalenko 🚨#GoAvsGo #Torpedo pic.twitter.com/Nvcu7ogfEw
— Nick, Quebec City (@NickQuebec) September 3, 2023

Along with scoring nearly a point a game over the past two seasons the younger Kovalenko plays a heavy game, capable of racking up hits and scrapping with opponents. With Logan O’Connor now out for the season, Kovalenko could easily slide into Colorado’s forward group, most likely he’ll start on the fourth line alongside Andrew Cogliano or Kovalenko will play along with Ross Colton and Miles Wood and bump Zach Parise down a line.

Nikolai Kovalenko out there producing points and body slamming people. I can’t wait for his Avalanche debut, he’s going to be great.pic.twitter.com/6GCyY7MRxG
— Avalanche Forever (@citchmook) November 18, 2023
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The Avalanche have 14 games left in the regular season including a five-game homestand that begins on Friday. With a game on Tuesday in St. Louis and then some time off, it seemingly makes sense to get Kovalenko integrated in the coming week. Though, it’s not unusual for NHL teams to add top prospects to their team in the middle of a playoff run, that’s how Makar made his pro debut. The Avs are making a late-season push for first, tied with Winnipeg at 91 points for the lead in the central and one point back of Vancouver for the West’s top spot.

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Denver, CO

Are GLP-1 weight-loss drugs really rewriting Denver restaurant menus? | Opinion

Published

11 hours ago

February 11, 2026

Press Room

Are GLP-1 weight-loss drugs really rewriting Denver restaurant menus? | Opinion

Food, Honestly is a monthly column discussing how people actually eat right now – not through reviews or recipes, but through real talk about cost, convenience and everyday food decisions. We want you to participate in that discussion by telling us what matters to you. Email allysoneatsden@gmail.com to keep the conversation going.

GLP-1s, drugs designed to regulate blood sugar, weren’t supposed to disrupt how we eat. They were built for metabolic control, not cultural upheaval, but it’s their effect on appetite that’s been the plot twist.

David J. Phillip, Associated Press file

Drugs like Ozempic are changing the way we eat. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

Now, if you want to see how drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro have reshaped how we eat, don’t look to a scale or a lab report. Look at a restaurant menu.

It was actually back in 2005 that the first GLP-1 drug was approved to treat Type 2 diabetes, but unless you were directly affected, you probably didn’t hear about these sorts of drugs until the more potent Ozempic entered our cultural lexicon. Over the past couple of years, as millions of Americans began taking these GLP-1s — and as appetites have shrunk — restaurants started to notice.

Some of the changes? Downsized portions, cocktails losing their alcohol and protein pushing its way into everything from our morning coffee to ice cream cones. What began as a medical intervention is now rewriting the menu.

I’ll admit, I thought last August’s New York Times story about restaurants shrinking portion sizes in response to Ozempic was just clickbait. Mostly, it was my own ignorance. I thought of the drugs as something only celebrities and rich people were taking for vanity, and I didn’t understand how they actually work.

The reality is that 18% of Americans have taken a GLP-1 drug for one reason or another, and those numbers are expected to grow substantially this year as new pills hit the market and as prices come down. Essentially, these drugs mimic a naturally occurring hormone that regulates blood sugar, slows digestion and signals fullness to the brain, erasing hunger long before that “personal” pizza is finished.

The result is not just weight loss, but also a reset of appetite itself. GLP-1 medications normalize smaller appetites — and restaurants are starting to respond.

“Before, if you didn’t have these gargantuan portions [on your menu], you were frowned upon,” said Brent Berkowitz, COO of Denver-based Olive & Finch restaurants. “The trend is flipping around. Now it’s about quality and flavor over quantity.”

At Olive & Finch, that looks like adding smaller, protein-dense plates to the menu and shedding some of those empty calories. Protein is a key part to all of this, the VIP on the plate to make sure weight comes off without taking all your muscles with it.

“It’s monstrous, the emphasis on protein,” Berkowitz said. “I’ve been on GLPs. You don’t feel like eating. Eating becomes a chore, not something you enjoy. You might have had 30 bites before, now you have 13 bites. So it’s got to entice you.”

Nationally, the GLP-1 era has made its way to the corporate test kitchen, with many chains getting in on the small-portion, high-protein action. Olive Garden added a “lighter portion” section to its menu in December 2025. Subway introduced $3.99 Protein Pockets in January, and Shake Shack is channeling the Atkins days with bun-less burgers on its “Good Fit” menu.

While most restaurants have been discreet about naming GLP-1s directly, Smoothie King wasn’t shy about calling its menu what it is. They created a dedicated GLP-1 Support Menu back in 2024, full of high-protein, no-added-sugar smoothies designed specifically for Ozempic users.

Carrie Baird, partner and culinary director of Culinary Creative Group, gave a playful nod to weight-loss drugs on her most recent menu at Tap & Burger. (Photo by Colleen O’Toole for Fox and the Hen)

Carrie Baird, partner and culinary director of Culinary Creative Group, which runs restaurants like Tap & Burger, Mister Oso, Bar Dough and Fox and the Hen, gave a playful nod to the drugs on her most recent menu at Tap & Burger. The smaller-portion, higher-protein burgers are under a new section called Green Lean Protein. (GLP – get it?)

“I think the demand is there,” Baird said. “For me, writing menus, I want to make sure I’m making these things available to people who want to eat like that. I want to give them the options.”

Her next goal is to create sugar-free mocktails for her restaurants, as GLP-1s can make alcohol less appealing. So while the sober movement had already been picking up steam over the past decade, these meds might just give it a little extra fizz going forward.

Even after learning more about these drugs, their history and their implications, I’ll admit that my ignorance and stereotyping about who, exactly, is taking them persisted. (I blame ‘The Real Housewives.’) I asked Berkowitz — who has Olive & Finch locations in Cherry Creek, Uptown, Union Station and the Denver Performing Arts Complex, as well as Little Finch on 16th Street — if geography played a role in demand. Would Cherry Creekers, I hypothesized, be more likely to need an Ozempic-friendly menu because of their reputation for being, well, maybe a little more Housewife-y?

Berkowitz emphasized that demand for this type of eating is showing up at all of their locations, but it is strongest at the Cherry Creek and Arts Complex restaurants. Still, even in neighborhoods where image isn’t everything, the appetite shift is real.

These drugs may not have been designed to change how we eat, but here we are. Protein added to anything and everything, smoothies designed to play nice with your prescriptions and restaurants measuring portions by appetite, not tradition. Maybe GLP-1s have done what no menu ever could: They’re convincing insatiable Americans that less is more.

Allyson Reedy is a Denver-area freelance writer, cookbook author and novelist. She is also a former Denver Post food writer.

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Denver, CO

Denver area events for Feb. 11

Published

23 hours ago

February 11, 2026

Press Room

If you have an event taking place in the Denver area, email information to carlotta.olson@gazette.com at least two weeks in advance. All events are listed in the calendar on space availability. Wednesday Downtown Denver Food Tour — 1-4 p.m., Denver, $63.60 and up. Registration required: deliciousdenverfoodtours.com. Mile High Soul Collective — 6:30 p.m., Dazzle at Baur’s, 1080 […]

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