{"id":520856,"date":"2026-03-24T21:33:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T21:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/520856\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T21:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T21:33:15","slug":"avalanche-activate-logan-oconnor-from-long-term-injured-reserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/520856\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche Activate Logan O\u2019Connor From Long-Term Injured Reserve"},"content":{"rendered":"

Avalanche winger\u00a0Logan O\u2019Connor\u00a0will make his season debut tonight, the team announced. He has been activated from long-term injured reserve, per the NHL\u2019s media site. The club still has nearly $5MM in cap space after the move, per PuckPedia<\/a>, so they\u2019re not in a crunch there.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s months overdue, but a welcome sight nonetheless. O\u2019Connor underwent hip surgery in early June last year after the Avs were dispatched by the Stars in the first round of the playoffs. It was his second hip surgery in as many years. The procedure came with a five-to-six-month recovery timeline, meaning he should have been back in the lineup a couple of weeks before Christmas at the latest \u2013 especially since reports late in the offseason<\/a> indicated his recovery was ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

That may have been the case initially. O\u2019Connor then had soft tissue issues<\/a> pop up in November as he was ramping up toward a return. The pain and swelling that came along with it proved incredibly difficult to manage. O\u2019Connor\u2019s return timeline stretched for weeks without him even skating, but he did eventually return to the ice shortly before the Olympic break. Now, another six weeks later, he\u2019ll finally be an option for Colorado over the last 13 games of the regular season.<\/p>\n

Currently in the first season of a six-year, $15MM extension he signed back in 2024 during training camp, O\u2019Connor has proven a valuable defensive checking presence in the Avs\u2019 bottom six over the past several years. The 29-year-old first emerged as a full-time threat amid Colorado\u2019s championship-winning season in 2021-22 and has stuck around as a regular ever since.<\/p>\n

When healthy, he\u2019s money in the bank for 20 points. He seemed to have taken another step forward in 2023-24, managing a career-high 13 goals and 25 points in only 57 outings, before his first hip surgery ended his season. His production took a step back to a 10-11\u201321 line in 80 games last year. His hit totals saw a significant drop-off, too, only logging 0.85 per game after clearing one per night easily through most of his career.<\/p>\n

Still, O\u2019Connor\u2019s possession impacts have historically been outstanding. Over the past two seasons, he posted Corsi shares of 54.4% and 53.1% at 5-on-5 despite starting less than 35% of his shifts in the offensive zone. The Avs haven\u2019t trusted any of their forwards to start fewer than 40% of their shifts in the defensive end this year, so having O\u2019Connor back will be a luxury to allow even more offensive zone time for the team\u2019s star-loaded scoring lines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Avalanche winger\u00a0Logan O\u2019Connor\u00a0will make his season debut tonight, the team announced. He has been activated from long-term injured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-520856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-coloradoavalanche","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116286299075936546","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}