Confirmed Signing with Link: [COL] F Logan O'Connor signs extension with the Avalanche (6 years, $2.5M AAV)

[GirardSpinorama]

Generally teams want to replace bottom 6 forwards with younger, cheaper, up and coming players. Vs signing bottom 6 forwards through age 34.

Agreed. But theres 6 bottom six forward spots and its very hard not have at least a couple of long term fixtures on it.

Major exception: William Carrier and the Hurricanes. They notoriously have a ton of forward prospects but still think Carrier is valuable enough to give a 6x$2M AAV to.

36 year old Staal and 32 year old Martinook are signed to multiyear deals too.

You cant just ice a bottom six of 20 year old ELCs, but obviously you want to find a LoCs every few years.

 

[emptyNedder]

32 year old Martinook are signed to multiyear deals too.

Martinook is pretty comparable to LOC's current play--fast, physical will score 30 points. Definitely worth the contract. If O'Connor finds more scoring, then he is more comparable to Coleman and the contract is great for the Avs.

 

[Bone Breaker]

late to the topic but Im stoked. Avs last season were doomed the moment he went down and to have him back on ice will be huge for our pretentions.

mark my words, boy, mark them well. by the time this contract is up, he will be second most memorable Avs player in history, only behind Forsberg.

 

[seafoam]

late to the topic but Im stoked. Avs last season were doomed the moment he went down and to have him back on ice will be huge for our pretentions.

mark my words, boy, mark them well. by the time this contract is up, he will be second most memorable Avs player in history, only behind Forsberg.

Can I have some of what you are smoking?

 

[shadow1]

Colorado's achilles heel in the MacKinnon-era has been forward depth. They had it when they won the Stanley Cup, but it getting there required significant in-season additions (Aube-Kubel, Cogliano, Lehkonen, Sturm). During the cup defense season the bottom completely fell out, with AHL talent like Martin Kaut and Ben Meyers getting regular playing time.

The Avalanche have seemingly changed philosophy after giving Miles Wood and now Logan O'Connor six-year deals. Wood is kinda a bottom-6 tweener (3rd/4th liner), but he's still better than what they've had in recent years. O'Connor is the glue that holds the bottom-6 together though. He's the brain of the "roaring 20s" line (Wood/Colton/O'Connor), and I thought for sure he'd leave Colorado next off-season and get something closer to what Yakov Trenin ($3.5M aav) got from Minnesota.

That's a very long way of saying I like the deal. The six years doesn't bother me because the Avalanche's window is rapidly closing.