The Colorado Avalanche announced shortly before their first preseason game that they reached an agreement with Logan O’Connor on a six-year contract extension.

The annual average value landed at $2.5 million over those six years. If that number is familiar to you, that’s because it is the same exact contract the Avalanche gave to Miles Wood in free agency in the summer of 2023.

O’Connor, 28, registered 25 points in just 57 games played last season, including a career-high in goals with 13. His season ended prematurely when he needed hip surgery and very likely prevented him from setting new high-water marks in every major statistical category.

What Logan O’Connor meant to the Avalanche

While O’Connor’s scoring numbers are modest, his overall impact was not. He made every line he played on significantly better, especially the line that he called home for most of the season alongside Wood and Ross Colton.

In the 282 minutes that the trio played together at 5v5, their expected goals-for percentage was a whopping 55%. In 338 minutes without O’Connor, Wood and Colton’s expected goals-for percentage dropped to 52%. It may not seem like much, but the quality was significantly hampered.

With O’Connor, that line produced 178 scoring chances, 76 of which were high-danger chances. Without him, Wood and Colton produced 168 scoring chances, 81 of which were high-danger, but in an additional 56 minutes.

That added efficiency underscores O’Connor’s value to the offense, but his speed, work ethic, and penalty-killing prowess were also notable.

O’Connor’s final game of the season came March 3 against the Chicago Blackhawks. To that point, Colorado’s penalty kill was 11th in the league at 80.4%. From that point on, the Avs were 16th at 78.3% on the PK.

It’s not fair to say that O’Connor was the sole difference-maker in all of those numbers, but there is a clear line to be drawn in his absence and the Avs struggling in an area that would plague them for the rest of the season, especially the playoffs.

Again, not a gigantic difference, but the Avs were worse in both spots in O’Connor’s absence. You also had the trade deadline to consider. Would the Avs have moved a draft pick to Minnesota for Brandon Duhaime, whose game most closely replicated that of O’Connor’s, without the season-ending injury? We’ll never know, but it’s fair to speculate the team might not have made that deal.

Because I’m me, let’s look at what O’Connor’s fancy stats were at a snapshot.

Logan O’Connor’s fancy stats

This is everything I wrote above distilled into some charts and graphs. The takeaway is that O’Connor was an elite defensive forward at 5v5, an above-average play-driver on offense (though clearly not a great play-finisher despite his astronomical shooting percentage of 15.3%), and an above-average forward on the penalty kill.

Factor in O’Connor’s speed, which is a picture-perfect fit in Colorado, and you see why the Avs wanted to ensure O’Connor didn’t come close to the open market. He likely would have been able to command something in the area of Yakov Trenin’s four-year deal at $3.5M AAV ($14M versus the $15M the Avs gave him).

Because the Avs were willing to go longer on term, the AAV dropped and Colorado and O’Connor found a sweet spot. The Avs certainly care more about AAV at this stage than they do term as they are squeezed with a top-heavy roster of expensive superstars.

O’Connor, nicknamed “The Mayor of Denver” due to his popularity and championship-winning career at both the University of Denver and with the Avalanche, is now signed through the age of 34.

For more immediate reaction to this deal, check out the emergency podcast the gang did.