The surprising Avalanche didn’t practice Monday, but confirmed that it plans to keep 18-year-old centers Matt Duchene and Ryan O’Reilly on the roster for Friday’s 10th game of the season, against Carolina at home.
That all but commits the Avalanche to keeping the two young players through the rest of the season rather than returning them to their major junior teams in the Ontario Hockey League — the Brampton Battalion (Duchene) and the Erie Otters (O’Reilly).
The biggest surprise is O’Reilly, the No. 33 overall choice in the 2009 draft. O’Reilly not returning to Erie was mixed news for Sherwood Bassin, the team’s general manager and managing partner who also is the OHL’s chairman of the board.
“Craig Billington also played for me,” Bassin said of the Avalanche’s vice president. “I left him a message about Ryan last week. I said, ‘You guys gave him a test and he passed the test.’ “
O’Reilly has done major work on the Avalanche penalty-killing unit, and he has a goal and five assists in eight games. He had a modest 16 goals for Erie last season.
“A lot of guys who have big-time stats in our league spend a lot of years in the American Hockey League,” Bassin said. “That’s because they don’t know how to play the whole game. This guy understands. He’s got a lot of (Philadelphia’s Mike) Richards in him. He’s a leader. He’ll be one of the captains there in a few years, no question in my mind, and it’s not because he’s a talker. It’s all about the team winning and what he’s going to contribute to that.”
Bassin joked that O’Reilly has an unselfish style similar to that of his older brother, Cal, who tied for eighth in OHL scoring in 2005-06 and was recalled from the AHL by the Nashville Predators this week.
“I think Cal had 11,000 assists and five goals that season in our league,” Bassin said with a laugh, then added: “You might want to check those numbers (18 goals, 81 assists). But whatever they were, it tells you what kind of player he was. Same with Ryan: If you’re in a better position to score, you’re going to get the puck.”
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
