Colorado Avalanche forward Ryan O’Reilly was named the NHL’s third star of the week on Monday. The Minnesota Wild’s Devan Dubnyk took the first star while the Columbus Blue Jacket’s Cam Atkinson earned the second star.
O’Reilly has been on fire down the stretch as the Avs hang on for dear life on the edge of the playoff race. He registered a league-leading seven assists and eight points in four games on the week. The 24-year-old also led the Avalanche with two power play points and played over 20 minutes per contest.
He started the week on a tear by scoring or assisting on all five Avs’ goals in their 3-2 loss to the Calgary Flames and 4-3 loss to the Edmonton Oilers. O’Reilly followed that up with a third straight multiple point game in a 4-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks. He slowed down a little but still picked up one assist in Colorado’s 5-3 win over the Buffalo Sabres to close out the week.
The Clinton, Ontario, native has 12 points on his current career-long seven-game point streak.
After a slow start to the season, O’Reilly is now up to 14 goals and 52 points and has skated in all 75 games this season. He’s also third in the NHL with 88 takeaways in the often-overlooked statistic. He leads all Avs with 38 assists on the season.
When asked about the award in his morning skate press conference, Avalanche head coach Patrick Roy made sure to acknowledge the efforts of O’Reilly’s linemates – Gabriel Landeskog and Alex Tanguay.
“That line has been outstanding. The three of them have been connecting really well. I’m sure he’s going to give a lot of credit to [Landeskog] and [Tanguay]. Especially on the road trip they were very dominant. I think it’s a good mix”
O’Reilly has one year left on the two-year, $12 million deal he signed with the Avalanche last offseason. The Avs’ second round draft pick from the 2009 draft has collected 243 points in 420 career NHL games.
Semyon Varlamov is the only other Avalanche player to be selected to the NHL’s “Three Stars” this season. The Russian netminder was the named the second star on two different occasions.
Nathan is a staff writer for Mile High Sports. He can be reached on Twitter at @TheRealNatron.
