Jack Drury had a face full of sweaty hockey gloves when he collected the assist on Colorado’s game-winning goal Sunday afternoon.
Drury tracked down the puck in the neutral zone and chipped it back into the Los Angeles end. His reward was a hard hit from Kings tough guy Jeff Mallott into the boards inches away from TNT analyst Brian Boucher.
Just as Drury offered a two-handed response, Logan O’Connor was flipping the puck over Anton Forsberg’s glove and into the Kings’ net for a two-goal lead 5:50 into the final period of a Game 1 victory at Ball Arena.
“Got the puck there, was just trying to put it in (the offensive zone),” Drury said. “OC’s so fast. I feel like he does that a lot, where he isn’t even in the picture and then all of a sudden, he has the puck. So it’s a great effort by him.
It was a grind-it-out Game 1 for the Avalanche, and a great start to the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs for the club’s “identity line.” O’Connor was the hero, scoring the game-winning goal. It was his first since the 2025 postseason.
In between were 12 long months.
“Super happy to get it out of the way,” O’Connor said. “Felt like our line over the course of the last couple weeks here during the season, we were continuing to build things. Just try to stick with our game plan. For us, our game translates well to playoffs. Itap a lot of simplicity and muck it up and just wear teams down. It was nice to get that one and finish the job off.”
O’Connor had two goals and six points for the Avs in their seven-game series loss to the Dallas Stars a year ago. He was one of the team’s best and most consistent players throughout the epic series.
Then, for the second straight year, he needed hip surgery. He missed the end of the 2023-24 season and the 2024 playoffs because of the first hip issue.
He had offseason surgery to correct the second. The timeline for him to return was early November. But then a second, still undisclosed issue popped up. Weeks went by without the answers he needed or a plan for recovery and return.
It limited him to the final 13 regular-season games, allowing a quick tuneup before the most important part of the campaign.
“I mean, he’s worked so hard,” said Avs captain Gabe Landeskog, who missed three full regular seasons with knee issues. “Obviously, he was able to come back the last month or so, but hasn’t found the score sheet. We’ve just kept telling him to save them. Save them until we really need him, and tonight we needed it, and he put it in. It was great — well deserved.”
O’Connor thought he had his first NHL goal in 358 days a little earlier in this contest. He ripped a shot past L.A. goalie Anton Forsberg, but Drury had been knocked into the netminder by Kings defenseman Drew Doughty just before the puck sizzled by him.
The goal was waved off for goalie interference, and the decision was upheld after the Avs challenged. Undeterred, that line kept working.
Eventually, they were rewarded with another goal from O’Connor, and there was no doubt it would count.
“For OC, I’m really happy for him,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “That’s a long road to get back, and Gabe had gone through (a) similar thing. Being out of the lineup is the worst thing when you’re a player, because you’re just wanting to help and you’re wanting to make an impact. Then you come back and your game’s not going to be 100%. It’s not going to be the top tier right away.
“He’s continuing to work through that to be effective, always committed, always going to work, always going to do everything he can for the team … He’s been really good, and we know he can chip in on the offensive side of things. He did tonight, and I expect he’ll continue to make an impact.”
Depth is a clear advantage for the Avalanche in this series. Colorado’s fourth line exploited that in Game 1.
Drury, O’Connor and Joel Kiviranta were the team’s best regular trio, generating 62.3% of the expected goals while on the ice together at 5-on-5, according to Money Puck.
Bednar’s trust in his “identity line” at this time of year is a staple of the best Avs teams during his tenure. It’s not surprising that while others around him have changed, O’Connor always seems to end up on that line by mid-April.
“It’s hard work and relentlessness,” Bednar said of his fourth line. “They spent the bulk of their time playing in the offensive zone and pursuing pucks. I think that’s exactly what we need from them. We saw it from them last year in the playoffs … It’s a highly-effective line that I can trust against anybody, and that’s all because of the hard work and commitment that they have.”
