Frei: Avalanche’s Logan O’Connor revels in ex-Pioneer glory, looks ahead to playoffs

Former Denver Pioneer Logan O’Connor has been an effective utility winger for the Avalanche this season, sliding up and down on the four lines depending on the available manpower and circumstances. Yes, he even played a few games on the star-studded top line in injury sieges.

The Avalanche’s deadline-neighborhood acquisition of three veteran forwards — Artturi Lehkonen, Nico Sturm and Andrew Cogliano — while giving up only Tyson Jost led to shuffling.
Lately, even in the absence of the injured Gabriel Landeskog and Nazem Kadri, O’Connor seems locked onto the fourth line, and he was skating there with Cogliano and Darren Helm in the Avalanche’s 9-3 rout of the Los Angeles Kings Wednesday night.

An injury-free roster is rare, but if all the forwards are available in the playoffs, it’s even conceivable O’Connor could be an occasional healthy scratch.

That’s weird because O’Connor is the only Avalanche who has played in all 73 regular-season games.

I asked O’Connor after the morning skate about how the additions have affected his role.

“I think for sure the forward group and D corps is deeper,” he said. “That’s pretty obvious with the players we brought in. I think that just increases competition for everyone. Hopefully, that will bring out the best in all the players. . .

“I think everybody’s OK (with it) because you want to do some damage in the playoffs. That’s what it’s all about and individual sacrifices have to be made in order for that to happen. Everyone wants to have success, so bringing in those guys brings in a lot of depth and competition, but it’s good for a winning culture.”

O’Connor didn’t hit the scoresheet against the Kings, leaving him with six goals and 15 assists, while averaging 14 minutes of ice time. He has been a major component in the Avalanche’s improved penalty killing of late, too.

I wrote a New Year’s column about O’Connor here, noting he’s the rare player who arguably is more effective in the NHL than as a collegian. He’s slowed down, at least offensively, and his only goal since that column ran was on January 2. But he has remained in the lineup … night after night after night.

The subplot in the past week has been O’Connor’s celebration of DU’s ninth national championship following the Pioneers’ Frozen Four victories over Michigan — the alma mater of J.T. Compher, Cogliano and Jack Johnson — and Minnesota State.

O’Connor has done a lot of gloating and taken a lot of teasing.

He can identify with the Pioneers’ championship experience.

At DU, he was part of a highly touted Pioneers freshman class that also included forwards Troy Terry, Jarid Lukosevicius, Dylan Gambrell, and Colin Staub; plus defensemen Blake Hillman and Sean Mostrom.

He got off to rough start at DU when he was a healthy scratch in 21 straight games as a freshman under Jim Montgomery. Two seasons later, though, O’Connor was a crucial cog on the 2017 Frozen Four title team as a junior.

Then and now, O’Connor’s Missouri City, Texas birthplace can raise eyebrows, but he was raised in Calgary. His father, Myles, played four seasons at Michigan — we forgot to ask if father and son had a friendly wager on the Frozen Four semifinal — and was with the Houston Aeros of the IHL when Logan was born in the Houston area.

Logan originally hoped to take the major junior path to pro hockey, in part because he got to watch major junior’s Calgary Hitmen play in the Western League.

“I was never drafted major junior,” O’Connor said. “I really didn’t have much of an opportunity (to play major junior) growing up, which at that point can be disappointing when you’re from Western Canada, that’s sort of all that everyone thinks about and talks about.”

Redirecting his aspirations, he “settled” for following his dad to NCAA hockey.

The intermediate step was playing Junior A with the Sioux Falls Stampede before heading to DU.

“When the opportunity came when I was in the USHL to go to a historic program like DU, when I was being recruited by Monty and those guys, that was impossible to pass up,” he said. “It all worked out for a reason. when I was younger, it was tough to see all my buddies going WHL and stuff, but I don’t even think if I had the opportunity, I would have taken that.”

He’s remained in touch with the Pioneers’ program after Montgomery’s departure and assistant David Carle’s promotion to head coach. Last Saturday, the Frozen Four championship game was two hours ahead of the Avalanche’s win at Edmonton. O’Connor stifled the urge to find ways to follow the progress of the game in Boston — say, on his cellphone.

“I was tempted, that’s for sure,” he said. “I was trying to focus on our game. I heard in between the periods, after the first period, when I did media, that they won. I heard going into (the third period) that they were down 1-0, then that they won 5-1, so that’s pretty cool.”

O’Connor praised Carle, the young head coach whose playing career ended after a heart defect was discovered at the NHL scouting combine while he was ticketed to follow his brother, Hobey Baker Award winner Matt, to DU.

“DC was great when I was there,” O’Connor said. “He was definitely learning a lot. Monty was always being a good presence in the locker room and his voice, you could always bounce things off him. To see his growth over the last few years, every summer going back and being in touch with those guys is pretty awesome. He deserves all the success he’s had. It’s pretty cool at such a young age, when he’s already accomplished in the NCAA. He definitely has a bright future in front of him. I know all the players there respect him a ton and love playing for him.”

Now O’Connor will he shooting to become part of a doubly glory-filled hockey season in Denver. That would require a Stanley Cup parade to follow the celebration of the Pioneers’ NCAA title.

It could happen, you know.

Terry Frei (terry@terryfrei.com, @tfrei) is a Denver-based author and journalist. He has been named a state’s sportswriter of the year seven times in peer voting — four times in Colorado and three times in Oregon. His seven books include the novels “Olympic Affair” and “The Witch’s Season.” Among his five non-fiction works are “Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming,” “Third Down and a War to Go,” “March 1939: Before the Madness,” and “’77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age.” He also collaborated with Adrian Dater on “Save By Roy,” was a long-time vice president of the Professional Hockey Writers Association and has covered the hockey Rockies, Avalanche and the NHL at-large. His web site is www.terryfrei.com and his bio is available at www.terryfrei.com/bio.html