Logan O’Connor is off to a great start this season for the Colorado Avalanche. He just needed to get some of his friends off the ice for a change.
O’Connor’s improvement over the past few seasons has been boosted by his patience for minutes making the most of his opportunity on the penalty kill. It looks like that is paying off in the early stages of the 2023-24 season, as O’Connor already has a pair of shorthanded goals in back-to-back games for just the fifth time in Avs history.
Penalty Kill Helped O’Connor
O’Connor has been a bottom-six forward his entire career for the Avalanche, but it’s his last two seasons where he’s really started to blossom as a player. He’s missed just one game since the start of the 2021-22 season, and has been a mainstay on the penalty kill for the Avs. In 2022-23, only J.T. Compher and Andrew Cogliano averaged more time per game on the penalty kill than O’Connor, and O’Connor has contributed at least one shorthanded goal in three straight seasons.
He doesn’t get a lot of scoring chances when Colorado is playing at even strength, but O’Connor makes the most of his time on the penalty kill – particularly this season. He had a pair of short-handed goals last season to lead the team, but few thought he would match that total just four games into this season. He has scored the shorthanded goals in back-to-back games, with the first one breaking a 1-1 tie in a 4-1 win over the Seattle Kraken. Two nights later, his shorthanded goal got the ball rolling as the opening tally in a 4-0 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks.
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The Avalanche penalty kill is also off to a roaring start. Colorado hasn’t allowed a power-play goal yet this season – stuffing the opponents all 17 times they’ve been shorthanded. Of the 10 teams that have been shorthanded 17 times this season, only the Avalanche and Calgary Flames have given up fewer than five goals. That’s another positive sign for the Avs, who were just 17th in the penalty kill a year ago. If more shorthanded goals keep coming, it could make Colorado even more dangerous moving forward.
O’Connor Could Use an Offensive Bump
The pair of early goals are a good indicator, and Colorado doesn’t care where O’Connor is getting them from. The 27-year-old winger has never scored 10 goals in a season. His career-high of nine goals came last season, but four of those goals came in a three-game stretch in November. Getting a pair of shorthanded goals definitely has upped the expectations for him, but he’ll have to pick things up at even strength to hit that career high.
O’Connor plays on the fourth line with Cogliano and Fredrik Olofsson, and each of those players is averaging only around 10 or 11 minutes of ice time per game. Outside of injuries, there likely won’t be a lot of wiggle room in the lines as Colorado did a lot in the offseason to bolster its depth at forward. That line is still getting used to playing with each other, but Cogliano does have a pair of assists in three games played.
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If O’Connor continues creating quality chances on the penalty kill, it could translate into more opportunities 5-on-5. Clearly, the bulk of the scoring falls on the shoulders of the team’s superstars like Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, but anything from the bottom six is a welcome relief – especially early in the season. It’s improbable that O’Connor continues the pace of netting a shorthanded goal every other game, but if he can help the Avalanche continue to shine when they’re a man down, it would be a big help in getting the team back to the form where it won the Stanley Cup in 2021-22.