The Col­orado Eagles, proud Amer­i­can Hock­ey League affil­i­ate of the Avalanche, had two recent full-time play­ers in the Avs’ line­up Mon­day night in Game 5 against the Dal­las Stars in Edmonton.

Defense­man Conor Tim­mins, mak­ing his NHL play­off debut, played along­side part­ner Sam Girard in Colorado’s 6–3 vic­to­ry at Rogers Place. And for­ward Logan O’Connor, who was play­ing in his third NHL play­off game, was the right winger on Colorado’s fourth line.

They both played well. Tim­mins logged 14:44, fifth among the Avs’ six defense­men, and was plus‑1. O’Connor, the for­mer Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver stand­out, played 12:23 and had the pri­ma­ry assist on the Avs’ first goal scored by vet­er­an Pierre-Edouard Bellemare.

“We know he’s got speed,” Belle­mare, 35, said of O’Connor, 24, who col­lect­ed his first career play­off point with a back-pass from the right wing to the trail­er. “He’s got such good speed he got the puck and tried to attack and he made a play. I’m com­ing behind, I don’t know if he sees me … but it’s an unbe­liev­able pass. And it’s just there for me to shoot it.

“At the end of the day, his legs and his (skat­ing), it’s not that easy to come in like this and just jump in but he’s doing an unbe­liev­able job.”

Avs coach Jared Bed­nar used Tim­mins in place of Kevin Con­nau­ton, who had replaced Erik John­son after the alter­nate cap­tain was injured in Game 1. Tim­mins, 21, made his NHL debut on open­ing night in Octo­ber but was sent back to the Eagles after the sec­ond game with the Avs. He and O’Connor each played 40 games with the Eagles.

“We’ve liked what he’s done since we’ve been here,” Bed­nar said of Tim­mins, select­ed by the Avs with the 32nd pick in the 2017 draft. “We’ve moved him into the big group when EJ got hurt. Watch­ing him prac­tice, let­ting him get com­fort­able, sit­ting in on meet­ings and bring­ing him up to speed. We kind of run two groups on most days. We’ve liked what we’ve seen.”

Bed­nar part­ly chose Tim­mins over Con­nau­ton because the for­mer gives the blue­line a sec­ond right-shot that John­son pro­vid­ed. Young star Cale Makar is the oth­er avail­able right-shot defenseman.

“I thought he was great,” Bed­nar said of Tim­mins. “To come in as a young guy into that type of game against a real good team in Dal­las and do what he did for us tonight, I thought he had a lot of poise. He moved the puck real well, used his first option, didn’t com­pli­cate things. He was a real good defend­er. I real­ly liked his night.”

MacK­in­non streak. Hart Tro­phy final­ist Nathan MacK­in­non had two points (one goal) to increase his NHL-lead­ing play­off scor­ing total to 23 points. He has now scored in all 13 post­sea­son games, the longest play­off run since Chicago’s Jonathan Toews had a 13-game stretch in 2010.

MacK­in­non, who turns 25 on Tues­day, is one of four play­ers to have a point streak of 13 or more games to start the post­sea­son, join­ing Bryan Trot­ti­er (18 games in 1981), Mark Messier (14 games in 1988 and 13 games in 1994) and Bob­by Orr (14 games in 1970 and 13 games in 1972).

Foot­notes. MacK­in­non and team­mate Nazem Kadri each have eight goals this post­sea­son, the first time the Avs have had two play­ers with eight-plus goals in the play­offs since 2002 (Joe Sakic and Peter Fors­berg each had nine). … Makar, who had an assist in a team-high 24:26, has 14 points in the play­offs — tied for sec­ond-most in NHL his­to­ry among rook­ie defense­men behind Boston’s Glen Wes­ley in 1988 (16).