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Duchene might play when Avs go for clincher in Game 6 |
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Rick Sadowski
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Matt Duchene skated for the seventh consecutive day Sunday and shot pucks with a handful of teammates, fueling speculation he'll be in the lineup Monday night at the Xcel Energy Center when the Avalanche attempts to clinch its first-round playoff series with the Minnesota Wild.
The Avalanche has a 3-2 lead in the best-of-7 series and coach Patrick Roy said a decision on Duchene will be made after the morning skate.
"We said all along we’re going to be smart with him," he said. "He’s a talented player, he’s a great hockey player, he wants to play. If it’s up to him he’d be in the lineup tomorrow, but it’s not the way it works here.
"The tough part right now is he hasn’t had a chance to have a full (contact) practice with us. He had a morning skate (Saturday), today it’s more shooting, more for the goalies. Tomorrow he’s going to have another morning skate and we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes."
Duchene, who had a career-high 70 points (23 goals, 47 assists) in 71 games, hasn't played since March 29 when he sustained an injury to the medial collateral ligament in his left knee in a collision with teammate Jamie McGinn on their first shift against San Jose.
"He seems to react well to the treatment," Roy said. "He looks good, but like I said before we’re going to be patient and tomorrow we’ll see how he feels after the morning skate and we’ll make a decision after that."
If Duchene plays it will be as the fourth-line center at the start and on power plays, where the Avalanche has gone 1-for-18 in the series.
"You can’t jump in and play the same way you were before you got hurt," Roy said. "Slowly start on the fourth line, power play, and then you’re going to see it, you’re going to smell it if he’s ready for more minutes."
Said rookie Nathan MacKinnon: "Plain and simple we can't replace a guy like that. He's one of our best players, our top scorer. It makes a difference every time he plays. If he doesn't, hopefully we can win for him and then he'll be ready to go in Round 2."
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MacKinnon, who leads all playoff scorer with 10 points -- his two goals and eight assists have all come at home -- said his overtime goal in Saturday's 4-3 win is "still exciting," but that it has to go on the back burner for now.
"We want to kind of forget about it and move on for tomorrow night," he said. "We definitely need that win. We left that game behind and we're in preparation mode now. It's not going to get any easier."
The Avalanche is well aware how difficult it will be on Monday, with or without Duchene. The home team has won every game in the series and the Wild outshot Colorado 78-34 and outscored the Avalanche 3-1 in winning Games 3 and 4 in St. Paul.
"I’m not going to guarantee any results, but we know how it’s going to be over there," Roy said. "We know how their fans are going to react, we know how they’re going to play. There’s not going to be any surprise. If they beat us, they beat us. We’ll be ready for that. We’re going to have to play exactly how we did yesterday."
The Avalanche did manage to outshoot the Wild for the first time in the series on Saturday (35-32) and scored four times against goalie Darcy Kuemper, who held them to one goal on 92 shots over parts of the three previous games.
"We scored four on their goalie," Roy said. "He came in midway in the second period in Game 2, he played really well and then we could not score in Game 3 and it started to get into our head. Now scoring four goals yesterday we started to have better looks and we start to know we can beat this guy, which is very positive going there. It’s a big difference in Game 6."
Said MacKinnon: "They played very well against us there. We need to do a better job of generating offense. We've been a very good road team all year so I don't think we should be discouraged after a couple bad road games. It's going to be a tough task for us. They're going to come out hard and be very desperate. Their season's on the line. For us, we have to have the same mentality."
The Avalanche went 0-for-3 on power plays and the only goal in 18 power-play chances against the Wild was scored into an empty net by Paul Stastny in Game 2. The Avalanche totaled five shots on the man advantages, which Roy views as a positive sign.
"I thought we had some threat, some chances," he said. "I thought we moved the puck better, we brought the puck to areas where we wanted to be. I think we’re close to getting a goal. Hopefully it’ll be tomorrow in Minny. We’re doing a lot of good things.
"Both teams are playing really well shorthanded. Both teams are doing a good job killing penalties. Then I look further in other series. You look at Chicago, who has a tremendous amount of skills and before last game they had only two power-play goals. To score goals you need breaks and you need to be in the right place. "
The Avalanche killed all three Wild power plays and opened the scoring on a shorthanded goal by Cody McLeod. Minnesota has gone 2-for-15 on power plays in the series.
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PA Parenteau's play was certainly encouraging Saturday. A non-factor since injuring both knees in the regular season and in the first four games against the Wild, he scored the tying goal with 1:14 to play, though it looks like Stastny was offside on the play (the officiating has been awful for both teams). Parenteau had six shots on goal and shot the puck off the right post late in the second period.
Roy said he spoke with Parenteau after Game 4, when he had one of the Avalanche's 12 shots on goal in the 2-1 loss.
"Confidence comes with how hard you’re going to work," Roy said. "If you work hard, confidence is going to get there. You can go to Wal-Mart and you can’t buy confidence in the business of hockey because they don’t sell confidence at Wal-Mart. If you move your feet, and if he’s moving like he did yesterday, he’s a smart hockey player.
"He has a high IQ and he’s capable of having an IQ by playing a faster pace. That was a really good game for him. That line was very good yesterday. (Ryan) O’Reilly, McGinn and Parenteau had good puck possession. They had really good chances."
Parenteau said his conversation with Roy did him a world of good.
"That’s a talk I needed to have with him," he said. "It’s tough when you come back from injuries like that. It was nice to talk to him. He told me he was believing in me. It was good to have that chat for sure. I was a little more tentative for sure with my knee and stuff. At the end of the day it was coming down to competing more and to play with an edge a little more. It’s playoff time and I think I did that last night and it made a big difference in my game."
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