PHILADELPHIA — Last season, the Avalanche used an advertisement to flaunt the potential of top-three draft picks Matt Duchene, Gabe Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon. Duchene sported three fingers for being the third pick in 2009, Landeskog the peace sign for going second in 2011 and MacKinnon was No. 1 for going first in 2013.
Game on. Beginning Tuesday against the Flyers, the threesome now makes up a line, with MacKinnon playing center between left wing Landeskog and right wing Duchene. Coach Patrick Roy is stacking a line — dubbed the Nine Line based on sweater numbers — to help rejuvenate an offense that has scored just three goals in the last two games.
“There’s a lot of responsibility on our shoulders to score as a line and provide offense,” Duchene said a morning skate at the Wells Fargo Center. “We’re looking forward to getting it started tonight.”
Colorado is beginning a seven-game road trip — six against Eastern Conference opponents — that concludes Nov. 23 in Winnipeg. Since the home team has the last change, the MacKinnon line will continually go up against the opposition’s top defensive line. But the Avs will give them some level of surprise.
Duchene and MacKinnon are natural centers and will switch positions on the fly. The first one down ice on the backcheck will probably play center — having below the goal-line defensive responsibility — and faceoffs will be taken by the guy with the stick furthest from the linesman dropping the puck.
MacKinnon shoots right and Duchene is a lefty. “We’ll share the draws because my strong side is my left side and his strong side is his right side,” Duchene said.
If he’s asked to play wing, Duchene prefers the right side. He likes to accept passes up ice on his backhand and set up offensively on the right wing. MacKinnon might be the NHL’s fastest skater, so he covers more ground.
“Nate and I played together all last game (against the New York Rangers on Friday) and the third period at Arizona (Thursday),” Duchene said. “We would have liked to have scored more — par for the course this year, maybe — but when Gabe got out there at the end of the (Rangers) game we were really buzzing and had some good chances. We saw some clips this morning of some of the stuff we did well. We just want to keep that going.”
Noting their youth and skill, Roy said the MacKinnon line will get the most minutes among forwards.
Footnotes
Center John Mitchell is not sufficiently healed from an oblique injury and will not play against the Flyers. Winger Alex Tanguay is out with a knee injury and is not on the trip. Defenseman Nate Guenin is Colorado’s only healthy scratch. … Neither Roy or general manager and fellow Hockey Hall of Famer Joe Sakic attended Monday’s 2015 HHOF induction ceremony in Toronto, where two former Detroit Red Wings rivals Sergei Fedorov and Nicklas Lidstrom joined the club.
Mike Chambers: mchambers@denverpost.com or @mikechambers
