Avalanche lock in Logan O’Connor with six-year contract extension

It’s not far from Magness Arena to Ball Arena, but a path to a day like Monday looked a million miles away for Logan O’Connor as a freshman at the University of Denver.

O’Connor was not drafted by an NHL team. He spent a chunk of his freshman year at DU as a healthy scratch for the Pioneers. The Colorado Avalanche was the only club to offer him an invite to a summer development camp.

That same guy signed a six-year, $15 million contract Monday. The Avs secured one of their key glue guys through the 2030-31 season and O’Connor wrote another chapter in his remarkable local hockey story.

“Denver is now home for me. The organization has treated me amazing. I look back at the journey and how far (I’ve) come,” O’Connor said. “The group of guys is amazing. My wife has her dream job here as well. So it all just sort of works out great.

“It’s definitely a great day.”

O’Connor had a career-high 13 goals in only 57 games this past season. He had 25 points, one shy of his personal best before his 2023-24 campaign ended in early March.

He had season-ending surgery to repair a torn labrum in his hip. The injury first occurred six years prior but didn’t become something that affected his ability to play at his top level until last season. O’Connor had a full summer to rehabilitate the injury and is healthy to start this season, which will be his fourth as a full-time NHL player.

“We are thrilled to have ‘OC’ under contract for the next seven years,” Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland said in a team statement. “He is a relentless worker and competitor who brings energy and grit to the lineup every night. His speed and skating ability make him a dangerous two-way player and he is one of our top penalty killers. Logan is also a great teammate and takes pride in being a part of the Denver community.”

O’Connor broke out as a key role player for the Pios in his sophomore season, helping DU win a national championship in 2017. He signed with the Avs after his junior year and has developed into a core member of the Colorado organization.

While the Avs did trade for a couple of similar players before the deadline last year after they knew O’Connor was going to need season-ending surgery, the team missed his ability to chip in offense in a depth role and his work on the penalty kill.

“I think it speaks more than anything to who he is as a person,” said DU coach David Carle, who was an assistant on the Pios staff when O’Connor was there. “He’s often talked about that (freshman) year as a springboard for his growth and development as a human and as a player. I think that’s been one of the x-factors for him in handling adversity at the pro level is he totally spun a tough situation, embraced it and got better because of it.

“Logan is like a total poster child for how to handle a tough circumstance the right way and come out the other side better for it.”

When everyone is healthy, O’Connor will likely play on the third line next to his buddies Miles Wood and Ross Colton. That was the club’s go-to third line a year ago, but one or more of those guys might get temporary promotions at the start of this season with Valeri Nichushkin (suspension), Artturi Lehkonen (shoulder) and Gabe Landeskog (knee) all likely to miss time.

If O’Connor continues to build on his breakout season from a year ago, there’s little question that he would have been able to secure a contract worth more than $2.5 million per year in the offseason.