{"id":453149,"date":"2026-02-04T11:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/453149\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T11:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:07:08","slug":"evening-notes-oconnor-laine-mccarron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/453149\/","title":{"rendered":"Evening Notes: O’Connor, Laine, McCarron"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colorado Avalanche Head Coach Jared Bednar<\/a> told reporters earlier today, including Meghan Angley of Guerilla Sports<\/a>, that Logan O\u2019Connor<\/a> has resumed skating and is progressing. Bednar also emphasized that the upcoming Olympic break will benefit the forward as he works toward a debut this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old has been out long term after undergoing hip surgery in June<\/a>, the second such procedure since 2024. Signed to an extension through the 2030-31 season, when healthy, the Avalanche are banking on the undrafted O\u2019Connor to be a relentless bottom six forward with strong defensive capabilities and penalty killing. He is firmly a 20-30 point contributor at this point, but not needed for more on the high flying team.<\/p>\n

Even without him, the Avalanche rank comfortably in first place, and O\u2019Connor will be a classic case of \u201cTrade Deadline at Home\u201d, rejoining the team just in time for a run this spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elsewhere across the league:<\/p>\n

Canadiens forward Patrik Laine<\/a> is not expected to return tomorrow against his former club at Winnipeg, per Eric Engels of Sportsnet<\/a>. The sniper will have to look past the Olympic break to make a return, after undergoing surgery in October<\/a>, and not playing since. In just five games prior to going down, Laine recorded just one helper, as he continues to have highs and lows. The 27-year-old will be in a fascinating spot once healthy, as Montreal is holding firm playoff position without him and may not be so keen to shake up their lineup. On the flip side, the former 40-goal-scorer is an unrestricted free agent this summer, and will be anxious to showcase his worth for a new opportunity, likely elsewhere.\u00a0
\nNashville Predators pending free agent Michael McCarron<\/a> has interest from \u201ca lot\u201d of teams, according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, shared on yesterday\u2019s episode of the Real Kyper & Bourne podcast<\/a>. The 30-year-old was listed as a possible trade candidate last week,<\/a> and now a market is taking shape which may prove enough to sway Nashville to part with their respected grinder. A face-off specialist standing at 6\u20196\u2033 with serious physicality and just a $900k cap hit, the former first-round pick of Montreal isn\u2019t necessarily a \u201cmust\u201d trade, given his improvement as a Predator, but GM Barry Trotz, who made headlines with his sudden resignation announcement yesterday<\/a>, would be wise to capitalize on a seller\u2019s market where a second or third round pick isn\u2019t entirely out of possibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorado Avalanche Head Coach Jared Bednar told reporters earlier today, including Meghan Angley of Guerilla Sports, that Logan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,758,49544,183540,743,760,448,1531,82],"class_list":["post-453149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-logan-oconnor","tag-michael-mccarron","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-nashville-predators","tag-nhl","tag-patrik-laine","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}