Matt Duchene in playoff series last season against Minnesota (John Leyba, Denver Post)
ANAHEIM — My game story on the Avalanche’s 4-2 win over Anaheim Friday night is Also, the pre-game Avs Briefs, complete with a mention of “Slap Shot,” are and the morning-skate story is .
Also after the morning skate Friday, I wrote the Sunday NHL column on a couple of the Avalanche players whose contracts are up.
In addition to what ended up in the later game story after a quick visit to the Avalanche dressing room area, here’s what Matt Duchene said about his goal that broke a 2-2 tie in the third period: “Tyson (Barrie) did a good job on (Corey) Perry. Dennis (Everberg) came in, too, and it was kind of a triple team. On a guy that good (Perry), sometimes you have to put three guys on him to get the puck off him. Dennis made a good chip pass … and I was able to read it and get a step. I had a similar opportunity earlier in the game and I kind of replayed it in my head and thought maybe I could have slipped it in the five-hole.”
On the Ducks’ side, coach Bruce Boudreau said: “I thought we had chances, but we didn’t battle hard enough to get to the front of the net or battle hard enough to get the pucks we should’ve gotten. When you don’t win the battles, you don’t win the games.”
Said defenseman Francois Beauchamin: “You have to give them credit. They played well. We had a lot of shots on net, and their goalie had a pretty good night. I would’ve liked to have seen more guys at the net to get the rebounds because there were a few out there. We just couldn’t get there to put it in.”
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or twitter.com/TFrei
