CHICAGO — On Friday morning at the United Center, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville was asked if he had gotten used to seeing Patrick Roy on the other bench as the opposing coach.
“What, with a beard?” Quenneville asked with a smile.
Yes, and with gray in it.
“That’s what coaching does to you,” Quenneville said.
Then Quenneville, an Avalanche assistant when he joined in the Stanley Cup celebration with Roy in 1996, turned serious as he looked ahead to the Friday night Avalanche-Blackhawks game.
“Patrick is one of those players you coached who has a different thought process, how he evaluates the game,” said Quenneville, who notched consecutive 95-point seasons from 2005-06 through 2007-08 as Colorado’s head coach.
“He sees the game as good as anyone I’ve ever been around,” Quenneville said. “Their team is dangerous. They’ve had a lot of different things happen to their team injury-wise this year, but they’re still around and they still have a chance.
“They’re competitive, as well. They find a way to keep themselves in games and win games, as well. We have a dangerous team (Friday night).”
A little later, after the Avalanche’s morning skate, Roy said of Quenneville: “From the day I was traded to Denver, he was in charge of the defensemen, and I always connected really well with him. I have a lot of respect for his knowledge of the game and the person he is. He’s a guy that works hard and I’m happy to see him having the success he’s having right now.”
In the teams’ previous meeting at the United Center this season, on Jan. 6, goaltender Semyon Varlamov had 54 saves in Colorado’s 2-0 victory.
“He seems to play well, and that was one of those games where you could say it was a goalie win for their team,” said Quenneville. “I just think you have to find a way to get inside. If he sees the puck, he’s an excellent goaltender, but I think that even if you get that quantity of shots, you still have to get higher quality by getting in front of him and being disruptive in that area and make it a little more challenging for him.”
Said Roy: “I just hope Varly has another shutout. We want to play better too. Quite honestly, when you give up 54 shots, no one left the building very happy to (give up) 50 shots. … It would be a nice objective to cut down on shots against, against these guys. The one thing when I look at how these guys play, they put a lot of shots on net. That’s something we’ve tried to teach our players, as well. It works for Chicago, it could work for us.”
Roy confirmed that the Avalanche would stick with its recent lineup against the Blackhawks, meaning Stefan Elliott and Daniel Briere would be the healthy scratches.
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or
