Nathan MacKinnon (Denver Post file)
Because the Avalanche didn’t have a morning skate or availability, Patrick Roy met with me a little over two hours before Colorado’s game with Minnesota Saturday night.
Here’s what he said when I asked him why Nathan MacKinnon had played so sparingly — he essentially was benched — in the third period and overtime of the Avalanche’s 5-4 shootout win at Dallas Friday: “I must have lost him in the rotation. Sometimes those things happen, you know.”
Nicely, I said I wasn’t sure I believed him. Patrick Roy isn’t “losing” Nathan MacKinnon, the player he sought to land for the Quebec Remparts when MacKinnon was 15 and balking at reporting to Baie-Comeau, who took him in the QMJHL draft, and the player he felt so strongly was the right choice at No. 1 overall in the 2013 draft.
“No, sometimes coaches are losing guys in the rotation,” Roy responded. “Those things happen.”
Let’s face it: Unless there’s a minor injury involved, and that seems extremely unlikely, Roy almost certainly was protecting MacKinnon in the sense that he didn’t want this to blow up and wanted to handle it in private. The most likely scenario here is that the coach was upset with a lack of attention to detail in all areas of the ice. The virtual same scenario unfolded earlier in the season and Roy said pretty much the same thing.
The Avalanche recalled defenseman Karl Stollery from Lake Erie Saturday, giving Colorado seven D-men again, but Roy indicated that the plan was to stick with what has been his usual six against the Wild. So, no, conspiracy theorists, at least two hours before the game, Roy didn’t play to sit out Jan Hejda, who is a possibility to be traded before the deadline Monday if a team is seeking a depth defenseman for the stretch run and postseason.
“We have one of our D that got a puck on the foot yesterday,” Roy said. “We just don’t want to take a chance. We’re going to go with the same D’s. It was just a precaution, nothing else.”
How big is this game?
“It’s a very important game,” Roy said. “It’s an opportunity for us to be four points behind these guys and closer to our objective, and we know we play them next Sunday. There are key games in your season and this is one of them.”
Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic is scheduled to meet with the media a half hour before the game. The session is a response to long-standing requests from multiple media outlets — including scribes — to speak with Sakic to talk about the imminent trading deadline, and while Sakic is approachable, it has been made clear that he would be available once and only once in advance of the deadline to talk about this. We’ve known for some time that it would happen today, but the Avalanche earlier in the day announced it would happen at 7:30. I’ll never say never about anything, but this was not SET UP to announce anything.
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or twitter.com/TFrei
