Avalanche Lose Veteran Winger to Season-Ending Surgery

Getty Logan O'Connor, Colorado Avalanche

Colorado Avalanche winger Logan O’Connor will undergo season-ending hip surgery, the team reported on March 10.

O’Connor, who last played on March 4, dealt with the injury for most of the season. There is no timeline yet for his return after surgery, but head coach Jared Bednar ruled him out for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs.

“Well, it sucks because he’s been a real good contributor to our team for a long time,” Bednar told Corey Masisak of the Denver Post. “He’s really dialed in with what he has to do.”

Colorado Prepared for the Worst at the NHL Trade Deadline

O’Connor was having a career year for the Avalanche in his sixth NHL season, but Bednar noted that his struggling health played into the team’s decision to add three forwards in the week leading up to the March 8 NHL trade deadline.

“We had an idea that it wasn’t going well for him,” Bednar said. “Adding depth is important regardless, but especially when you’re dealing with potentially getting bad news on a guy that’s played for us all year long.”

The Avalanche acquired No. 2 center Casey Mittelstadt, along with depth forwards Yakov Trenin and Brandon Duhaime, all of whom they hope will help offset the loss of O’Connor.

Despite the injury, O’Connor managed to score 13 goals, 12 assists and 25 points in 57 games this season, averaging a career-best 0.44 points per game. He was also averaging a career-high 14:57 of ice time while being a steady presence on the Avalanche’s top-10 power play.

What O’Connor’s Injury Means for the Avalanche

O’Connor, one of Colorado’s most reliable depth forwards, joins an already lengthy list of sidelined Avalanche players. Veteran winger Zach Parise is day-to-day with a lower-body injury, while Ross Colton, Jack Johnson and Artturi Lehkonen did not practice on March 10 due to illness but will travel with the team on their upcoming four-game road trip, per Ryan Boulding of NHL.com.

Depth center Chris Wagner, who missed Friday’s game against the Minnesota Wild with an upper-body injury, will also be available on the trip if needed.

The Avalanche are also still without captain Gabriel Landeskog, who has not played since winning the 2022 Stanley Cup. Landeskog had knee surgery May 10 with a recovery timeline of 12 to 16 months.

Earlier this season, general manager Chris MacFarland told The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun that there was a possibility Landeskog could return for the 2024 playoffs, but Bednar said that even the recent wave of injuries to the roster won’t lead to his returning any sooner.

“He’s not going to come back too early,” Bednar said. “It’s just not going to happen. He has a timeline that says, ‘You’re not coming back before this date. Doesn’t matter how good you feel,’ and we’re sticking to that. It’s his career. So we’re not going to play with that regardless of where we’re at in a playoff series … He will not come back before that date, and then he’s got to get himself to the point, hopefully, that he can come back. We don’t have clarity on that.”