|
Parenteau to miss 6 weeks; Roy calls Byfuglien action 'classless' |
|
|
Rick Sadowski
 Colorado Avalanche Blogger •Avalanche Insider • RSS
• Archive
• CONTACT
|
|
|
Avalanche right wing PA Parenteau will miss about six weeks because of a second-degree MCL sprain in his left knee, so players like Jamie McGinn will need to pick up the slack and get their games back in gear.
Avalanche coach Patrick Roy delivered the news about Parenteau after practice Monday, a session that lasted close to 90 minutes, at least a half-hour longer than usual.
"It's part of the season," Roy said. "We've been pretty lucky, I think, so far. We haven't been hit too much by injuries. From my standpoint, I think we've been more lucky than anything else. It's part of a season and it give opportunities for others to show us what they have."
Parenteau was hurt at 16:20 of the second period Sunday when he and Winnipeg Jets defenseman Jacob Trouba clipped skates at center ice. Parenteau twisted his knee while falling and needed help getting off the ice. He underwent an MRI on Monday morning.
Rookie Nathan MacKinnon will take Parenteau's spot on the line with left wing Gabriel Landeskog and center Paul Stastny, which means McGinn moves from the third line to the unit with Ryan O'Reilly and Matt Duchene.
McGinn has struggled since collecting eight goals and five assists in 17 games following his February 2012 trade from San Jose. He had 11 goals and 11 assists in 47 games last season and has six goals and five assists in 35 games this year. He has one goal and one assist in the past 10 games.
"I have to score, which I haven't been doing," McGinn said. "I have to put the puck in the back of the net, it's plain and simple."
McGinn, who is 6-feet-1 and 210 pounds, also needs to play a physical game and create space for Duchene and O'Reilly.
"They're really skilled players and I just have to work as hard as I can to get the puck and put it in their hands and do my job of going to the net and creating traffic," he said. "I think my problem in the past was, depending on who I played with, I changed my game. If I'm going to mature as a player, I have to continue to do the same thing game in and game out; it doesn't matter who I play with.
"I've played with them in the past. I know what 'Dutchie' brings to the table and I'm looking forward to playing with 'Factor' because he's a real skilled player and he's real good at creating turnovers and going to the right areas and he works hard. 'Dutchie' has a lot of speed and he has that offensive ability to turn something into a great play or a goal."
Parenteau had 18 goals and 25 assists in 48 games a year ago, his first season in Colorado after leaving the New York Islanders as a free agent to sign a four-year, $16 million contract. He has nine goals and 15 assists in 38 games this season, with no goals and six assists in the past 11 games.
"It was kind of a fluke injury," Stastny said. "He's one of those guys who hasn't been hurt a lot in his career. When one person goes down, you juggle the lines and have other guys step up. We can't hang our heads or feel bad for ourselves. We just have to keep going."
Stastny lost his first right wing, Alex Tanguay, to knee and hip injuries in a Nov. 2 game against Montreal. Tanguay hasn't played since but is expected to resume skating soon.
How the lines will look Tuesday against Columbus at the Pepsi Center:
Jamie McGinn -- Matt Duchene -- Ryan O'Reilly
Gabriel Landeskog -- Paul Stastny -- Nathan MacKinnon
Cody McLeod -- John Mitchell -- Max Talbot
Brad Malone -- Marc-Andre Cliche -- Patrick Bordeleau
*****
Semyon Varlamov, who will start again in goal Tuesday, laughed off the incident at the end of Sunday's game, when defenseman Dustin Byfuglien shoved a gloved hand in his face mask as the Jets celebrated their last-second overtime win. Varlamov swung his stick as Byfuglien skated away, but nothing more happened.
Roy called Byfuglien's behavior "classless," but said he wasn't going to "make a big story of this." Instead, he said Varlamov should be "flattered."
How so?
"It’s positive," Roy said. "It starts to show Varly gets under teams’ skin. They know they had to go at him if they wanted to win the game. The more Varly is going to play like this, the more you’re going to see an incident like that, which is great in some ways. But at the same time, it was classless, there’s no doubt about it.”
Roy said similar incidents happened to him during his career.
"I love it,” he said. “It means you’re under their skin. They’re mad at you, you're a problem to them. Varly is a problem to them right now. He should be flattered. If nobody touches you, it's because you're not doing much on the ice.
"Same thing for a forward. When a forward starts scoring, what do you think the coaches do? They send an agitator after him, a glove in the face and after a whistle they try to get you off your game. Varly is playing so well teams are going to try to get in his face a little bit more.”
Join the Discussion:
»