ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Update from the Avalanche’s morning skate is .
Blues center Paul Stastny participated in the morning skate but won’t play against his buddies, and good buddies they are. Stastny, who previously played hockey in Denver since 2004, beginning with his days at DU, hosted a bunch of them Friday night for dinner at his new house. Stastny has a shoulder injury and isn’t really shooting yet, and says he has another week or so. He had a goal and three assists in his first two games with St. Louis, and was injured on the first shift of his fourth game. Tonight is the sixth straight game he’ll be out.
“I have a lot of respect for Paul and appreciated coaching him last year,” Patrick Roy said after the morning skate. “He was a great leader for this team and obviously, it was a big loss for us. But this is the way the NHL is now, sometimes you’re going to lose players to free agency and there’s nothing you can do about it, and (the player) has to move on.”
Stastny still loves Denver, folks, particularly the University of Denver. The proud alum always likes to talk about the Pioneers, and he and I go all the way back since he was a freshman and I was primarily working college hockey. By the way, I watched the DU-BC Game 1 tilt at Magness Arena at a local sports bar Friday night and was impressed by the Pioneers, who I thought should have been on the other end of a 2-1 loss — which was Jerry York’s 500th career win. Colleague Nick Groke is working the series in .
Daniel Briere will again be a healthy scratch for tonight’s game against the Blues. I wanted to visit with Briere after the morning skate and post his thoughts here, but healthy scratches stay on and practice with assistant coach Tim Army and I had to run back to the hotel.
But Roy said Briere is taking his demotion well: “Outstanding. He’s great. It’s not an easy sitaution for him but I think he understands he’s 37 years old. The reason why we made the trade was the quality of the person, and he’s an outstanding person. He has great leadership in this room and has a lot of things to share to our guys, and our players are going to learn a lot for him.”
Meanwhile, P.A. Parenteau continues to play a top-six role — including power play and shootout specialist — for Montreal.
Super interesting, in-depth-written blog from allegedly signing over a $230,000 New York Islanders paycheck to cover gambling losses.
