Logan O’Connor, Colorado Eagles stepping up for the Avalanche once more

Logan O’Connor admitted to being a little bit nervous taking the ice in Game 3, which is fair considering it was his first ever Stanley Cup playoff game. To the casual observer, though, one could hardly tell.

It’s a pretty big stage for a kid who just turned 24 a few days prior, but O’Connor knew there was the possibility that this would happen when the Avalanche decided to take him to the bubble as part of the team’s 31-man playoff roster. So he stayed ready. 

“Unfortunately injuries are part of the game but it gives guys like me the opportunity to jump in there,” O’Connor said of making his postseason debut. “I just wanted to set myself up for the best chance of success fitness-wise off the ice. I knew there’d be an opportunity at some point that might come along.”

In his first NHL postseason action, O’Connor played in seven minutes, 44 seconds of Game 3, recording four hits while also playing some key minutes on the penalty kill. It was fairly limited action for the young kid but he came up big in those moments, even earning some high-praise from teammate and superstar center Nathan MacKinnon.

“You can tell he was working hard off the ice, being ready conditioning wise. We need everybody, you need depth and you need guys to step up and Logan came in and was a major impact with his speed and PK ability and everything,” MacKinnon said.

O’Connor truly is a homegrown talent and his work ethic has clearly not gone unnoticed. He was a member of the 2017 Denver Pioneers team that won the NCAA National Championship. He captured the attention of Colorado’s front office and received an invite to Avs development camp in 2018, earning a two-year entry-level contract for his efforts. He forwent his senior season with the Pioneers — which he was set to be the captain of — and made the jump to the pros with the Colorado Eagles, where he’s made leaps and bounds in his first two years of development down in Loveland. 

“Logan has come up with a lot of growth in his game from when we first signed him,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said. “This is a guy with elite speed and skating ability and you see the impact he’s made at the AHL. He knows what we want to see out of him here and we just asked him to go play the game and to play with purpose and not to come in to just dip his toes in the water, and I think that’s what we saw from him the other day. 

“He’s physical, he’s getting bigger and stronger and faster every month that we saw him through the season and he’s kind of picked up where that left off. I give him a lot of credit because he’s put in a lot of hard work to try and get here and make an impact for us and he certainly did the other night.”

O’Connor’s performance is a credit to the Colorado Eagles, who have stepped up in a major way all throughout the season at various times. Now once more, in the most critical juncture of the season, O’Connor and Co. are being called on again. With injuries to some key Avs players, including starting netminder Philipp Grubauer and strong veteran players like Erik Johnson, Matt Calvert and Joonas Donskoi, the Eagles fingerprints can be seen up and down the Avs’ postseason lineup.

Pavel Francouz, who was the starting netminder of Eagles during the 2018-19 season, is now stepping up for the ailing Grubauer. Kevin Connauton, a veteran AHL depth signing this offseason, has been called on to replace Johnson. Ryan Graves, who credits a lot of his development to the time spent in Loveland, is a staple on the Avalanche’s top pairing on defense. And, of course, most recently O’Connor.

“Some of the players we’ve gotten out of there the last few years have come up ready to play, ready to contribute and help us win some hockey games,” Jared Bednar said of the Colorado Eagles. “We’ve seen these guys throughout the course of the season be able to come up and help us.”

“It’s great to have such a deep AHL team and those guys had great season down there and they’re going to be key for us moving forward the next few seasons, not just these playoffs,” MacKinnon added.

With such a strong development system now just 50 miles down the road from Pepsi Center, the Avs and Eagles are now in a great position for success, both geographically and organizationally. For example, the move has allowed the Avalanche to quickly send development coaches, staff, scouts and players to and from the AHL to NHL level in just an hour’s time. That’s helped build strong developmental depth that is clearly paying dividends thus far.

In total, 13 different players, each having spent some time with the Eagles in some capacity this season, have stepped into the NHL lineup this year. That accounts for over one-third of the roster that’s donned a Burgundy and Blue jersey this year. Make no mistake, that has everything to do with the Avalanche securing an AHL team just down the road, just ask Bednar and his staff.

“Moving our affiliation up the road is one of the best choices our organization has made,” Bednar said. “Everyone’s kind of on the same page when it comes to the way we want to play as an organization and the structure of our game…I just feel like that’s been a homerun.”