CASTLE PINES — Logan O’Connor was well on his way to a breakout season for the Colorado Avalanche, and then a roadblock years in the making got in the way.
O’Connor set a career-high last season with 13 goals and was going to easily secure a new top mark in points before a torn labrum in his hip ended his campaign in early March.
“That was frustrating. I felt like a lot of things came together last year for me,” O’Connor said Monday at the Avs’ annual preseason charity golf tournament. “I guess I could take the positives from it and know that I did have a good year. It’s not like I had a bad year and then I’d be injured and would have had to sort of really look back in the mirror.
“I can at least hold my cap on that and try and learn from the things I did last year, and round up more areas in my game this year in a complete season.”
O’Connor, who turned 28 years old last month, has been an undrafted success story for the Avalanche after his days at the University of Denver. He was already an entrenched part of Colorado’s bottom-six forward group, but last season his offense ticked upward despite playing only 57 games.
His hip injury is a common one in hockey. A skating stride puts a lot of pressure on that part of the body. Valeri Nichushkin and Miles Wood have both had the surgery in previous seasons. O’Connor went to the same doctor, and his rehab process went relatively smoothly.
“I’ve actually had the torn labrum for six years,” O’Connor said. “For whatever reason, come November, it just became symptomatic.”
O’Connor missed two games in November, but then as the season progressed it went from just a pain management issue to one where he was feeling weakness and it was affecting his ability to skate.
The Avalanche, knowing that he was going to need surgery and miss the rest of the season, added Brandon Duhaime and Yakov Trenin just before the trade deadline in part to try and cover for his absence and beef up the bottom six.
“He was huge for us,” Wood said. “He’s just a voice in the room. He’s been here for a while. He knows how the team works, and he was missed a lot there in the playoffs. He brings a lot of speed. He’s hard in the corners. He’s hard on the puck, and he can make plays. So Ross (Colton) and I, we missed him a lot because we played with him for the majority of the season last year. I’m just excited to have him back.”
O’Connor said the rehab process went slowly at first, but he was back on the ice by mid-June and has been skating normally for about a month to get ready for the upcoming season. He expects to be at 100 percent when camp opens Thursday, but the Avs are going to be missing other key forwards.
A team spokesman confirmed Monday what Nathan MacKinnon said last week: Artturi Lehkonen will not be ready after offseason shoulder surgery. There’s been no timeline offered for captain Gabe Landeskog, who is into the 17th month of his rehab process after knee cartilage replacement surgery.
Then there is Nichushkin, who is suspended until at least mid-November while in Stage 3 of the NHL-NHLPA Player Assistance Program. If everyone was healthy and available, the Avs could look to rekindle the chemistry that Colton, O’Connor and Wood had a year ago.
It’s more likely that one or two of them will end up with an early-season promotion to help fill in for the missing big guns.
“I think for us it’s just emphasis on the details, the structure, the defensive side of the game,” O’Connor said. “I think losing some of that firepower that we’re going to be missing and the uncertainty there … it gives an opportunity for a lot of guys to fill the holes there. It’s not one player that’s going to have to do it. It’s going to have to be a collective group team effort because we’re missing those bodies.
“We might not be able to play the same type of style we want to play, necessarily, but I think in the long run, it’ll help us with our habits to sort of lock it down and really focus on those things to start the year.”
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