ANAHEIM, Calif. — Bruce Boudreau played only 141 games in the NHL, but he was a genuine AHL superstar. To many, he deserves cult-figure status because he was an opposing player skating against the Charlestown Chiefs in the 1977 movie “Slap Shot.” And now Boudreau, who won the Jack Adams Award as NHL coach of the year with the Washington Capitals in 2008, has coached the Anaheim Ducks to three consecutive Pacific Division championships.
Yet in Denver, he is perhaps best known as the object of Patrick Roy’s ire at the end of Roy’s first game as coach of the Avalanche, in October 2013.
No, they haven’t broken bread and become buddies since.
“We talked at the draft and that’s about it,” Boudreau said Friday after the Ducks’ morning skate. “We definitely come from different circles. He’s been in the NHL his whole life and been a superstar, and I’ve been more of a minor-league guy. So our paths didn’t cross too much.”
Perry looks ahead. The Ducks’ Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf were teammates of Colorado’s Matt Duchene on Canada’s 2014 Olympic championship team.
“He’s very skilled,” Perry said of Duchene on Friday morning. “He’s very fast, and he has a great hockey sense. When you put all those things together, you’re going to have a great hockey player, and that’s what he is.”
Perry, Anaheim’s leading goal scorer with 33 going into Friday, is one of the most grating players in the NHL — and he makes no apology for it.
“If I’m involved, it’s my game and I’m into the game,” Perry said. “I’m doing things that I need to do to be successful, the things that got me there.”
The Ducks lost to Los Angeles 4-3 in the second round of the playoffs a year ago and again will go in as one of the favorites, also likely as the Presidents’ Trophy winner as the team with the most regular-season points.
“We’ve been talking about it for a little while now, the last couple of years,” said Perry, who was with the Ducks’ 2007 Stanley Cup champions. “What’s the next step to take, how are we going to get there. I think the guys in this room really don’t care about anything but winning the title, winning the Stanley Cup. That’s our mind-set. That’s been our mind-set from the start of the season. We brought in some new personnel that hopefully is going to get us over that hump.”
Morning rest. The Avalanche won’t have a morning skate Saturday in Los Angeles before meeting the Kings to finish out the Southern California portion of the three-game road trip. Terry Frei, The Denver Post
