O’Connor Ready To Go After Fixing Lingering Hip Issue

When the Colorado Avalanche hit the ice for training camp on Thursday, they will likely be without some important forwards up front. Artturi Lehkonen will probably skate, but the Avalanche have confirmed he’ll be limited. Valeri Nichushkin won’t be there and isn’t eligible to return until November, and Gabriel Landeskog’s status is still very much up in the air. There are a lot of questions as to what the forward group will look like to start the season.

One guy who will be there on Thursday is Logan O’Connor, and when he hits the ice, there will be no limitations.

“I’ll be good to go,” O’Connor told the media at the annual charity golf tournament the Avalanche hold on Monday. “I’ve been skating normal for about a month now. I’ve been feeling great for a while now.”

The Avalanche desperately missed O’Connor down the stretch and in the playoffs last year. In the midst of the best season of his NHL career, the 28 year old winger shut it down around the trade deadline to get a lingering hip issue fixed.

You couldn’t tell from his play, but it’s something he had been dealing with for quite a while.

“I’ve actually had the torn labrum side of it for six years, which a lot of hockey guys would have,” O’Connor told me. “For whatever reason, come November, it just became symptomatic. I missed those two games (in the) middle of November, and then it was something I was managing along the way. The pain, I could always sort of manage and get through.”

Eventually, it became too much for O’Connor to deal with, and he had to make a tough decision.

“Once I was out, it ended up becoming a weakness that inhibited my ability to skate and ultimately play my game,” he said. “Then you’re overthinking, and you feel like you’re playing from behind a bit, and that’s when I had to make the decision to get (the surgery) done.”

The procedure he had is common among NHL players, as his teammates Valeri Nichushkin and Miles Wood both had the same surgery. O’Connor even had the same surgeon complete the procedure, so there wasn’t really any concern on his part that the issue wouldn’t get fixed.

Rehab, however, wasn’t exciting.

“The start is pretty slow,” he said. “For the first three weeks, you’re in these two machines for probably five hours a day, just mobilizing and icing. That part of it is pretty slow. Then as summer progresses, you can slowly open it up in the gym more and more. It’s such a common surgery…it’s more so just the length of time.”

O’Connor combined with Ross Colton and Miles Wood to wreak havoc on opposing teams when they were together, and without the speedy winger, the other two weren’t able to quite reach the same heights down the stretch.

“Ross and I, we missed him a lot,” Miles Wood said. “I’m just excited to have him back. He’s just a great guy.”

The Avalanche hit the ice for training camp on Thursday morning at 9:00 AM. All on-ice activities are free and open to the public at Family Sports.