Avalanche’s Parker Kelly has become trusted glue guy: ‘He’s a great pro’

Parker Kelly was born to replace Andrew Cogliano.

OK, that’s a bit of hyperbole.

But, as the Colorado Avalanche attempt to win the Stanley Cup for the second time in four years, it turns out that signing Kelly this past summer was a tidy bit of business. He might just be the right guy to replace one of the top depth guys in recent franchise history.

“His mindset — he’s a great pro. I think it starts with that,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “Whatever we asked him to do, he was willing to try and do it.

“I think his mentality and mindset are very similar to (Jack) Drury and (Logan) O’Connor. You’re looking for that chemistry, and I think we found it. It reminds me a lot of the (Darren) Helm-Cogliano-O’Connor line that we had in 2022.”

Kelly grew up in Camrose, Alberta, which is about 60 miles southeast of Edmonton. He was an Oilers fan, which was the team that drafted Cogliano and the latter’s home for the first four seasons of his NHL career. Kelly even had a Cogliano T-shirt.

Back then, Cogliano was a recent first-round pick and young up-and-coming player. Eventually, he settled in as a role player in the NHL and became one of the best penalty-killing, forechecking energy guys in the league.

Now, Cogliano is in his first year as part of Colorado’s management team. And Kelly is the club’s fourth-line left wing, which is where Cogliano played for most of his time here after arriving ahead of the 2022 trade deadline.

“It’s pretty cool,” Kelly said of Bednar’s comparison. “(Cogliano) has been great to me since I got here. I’ve learned a lot from him already. He’s in a management role now, but you can definitely see the effect he had on the room and all his leadership qualities.”

When Kelly arrived this past summer after signing a two-year contract at $825,000 per season, it was with little fanfare. He also wasn’t signed to be the club’s fourth-line left wing specifically.

The Avs needed depth forwards to replace the likes of Cogliano, who retired, and Yakov Trenin and Brandon Duhaime, who signed elsewhere as free agents. Colorado also had massive injury and availability issues at the start of the season.

Kelly moved to center during training camp, a position he had never played. He played a large chunk of the season there, until Charlie Coyle arrived on trade deadline day.

Here is a Bednar quote, without attribution: “Turns out to be a really trusted defensive player for us. He can play against anybody, because he’s fast, he’s physical and he’s got great detail to his game.”

Was he talking about Kelly or Cogliano? It was the former, but those are some of the same attributes that made Cogliano such a critical role player in the NHL for more than a decade.

“He’s a good glue guy,” O’Connor said of Kelly. “I think his versatility and his willingness to learn and play to his identity, I think oftentimes guys struggle to find their identity and what niche role is going to make them work.”

While Kelly had a Cogliano shirt growing up, he was just like every other kid in Canada who was born around the turn of the century. He wanted to be like Sidney Crosby.

Kelly didn’t quite score like “Sid the Kid” during his amateur hockey days, but he was the third-leading goal scorer on a Prince Albert team that won the Western Hockey League and reached the Memorial Cup.

He also wasn’t drafted and knew the road to the NHL was going to be paved by hard work and finding a niche, as O’Connor suggested.

“You’re watching Sid and see all the other high-end point-getters. And when you’re younger, you might be one of the point guys,” Kelly said. “Then, as reality starts to set in, I think juniors for me was a big turning point in my career, just learning how to be a good third-liner, playing more north-south. I had a little too much east-west in my game.

“That’s where I learned how to hone my craft. It was a little bit of an adjustment, but I’d do anything to get into the league.”

After parts of three years in the AHL and surviving despite having only one goal and four points in his first full NHL season, Kelly has transformed into a full-time regular over the past two campaigns. When he arrived in Denver, it wasn’t necessarily the plan for him to replace Cogliano.

But it turns out he might just be the right guy for the assignment.

“I just try to come in and do my job, whatever is asked of me,” Kelly said. “Be a good teammate and bring energy to the room. That’s all I can control. I’m happy here. It’s been great.”