Avalanche's Logan O'Connor steps away after father's death
Myles O'Connor, a former NHL defenseman, died suddenly at 59, and his son is taking time with family instead of debuting in Calgary.
Avalanche's Logan O'Connor steps away after father's death
Hockey families are small enough that everyone eventually finds the thread connecting them. This week it ran straight through the Avalanche locker room. Myles O'Connor, a former NHL defenseman and the father of Colorado forward Logan O'Connor, died suddenly Thursday at 59. Whatever else is on the schedule this week, that's the story that matters.
Myles O'Connor played 43 NHL games with the Devils and the Mighty Ducks between 1990 and 1994. He kept playing after that, suiting up for the Nippon Paper Cranes in Japan into the late 1990s.
His son grew up around the rink because of it. Logan went on to star at the University of Denver and has spent his entire NHL career with Colorado since debuting in 2018-19. He's one of those rare NHL stories built entirely on one franchise's patience, a local kid who stuck.
Logan O'Connor has 45 goals and 60 assists in 356 regular-season games. He won a Cup with the Avalanche in 2022 and signed a six-year extension in September 2024, the kind of deal that tells you exactly how the organization feels about him.
He'd been working back from a lower-body injury and was in line to make his 2026-27 debut Thursday night in Calgary. That plan is on hold now. The Avalanche say O'Connor is taking time away from the team to be with his family.
The organization called itself deeply saddened by his father's sudden passing, and it plans to honor Myles O'Connor at the rink. That's the right instinct. A team's business doesn't stop for grief, but it can at least make room for it.
There's no analysis to add to a week like this one. A guy who got to keep playing hockey into his late 30s, on three continents, raised a son who's now in his eighth NHL season with the only franchise he's ever known. That's a full hockey life on both ends.
The room in Denver will skate through this the way rooms do. The rest of the league will give O'Connor the same thing the Avalanche are giving him: space, and time.
Ferda Hockey's thoughts are with the O'Connor family.
