Sights and sounds from the Avalanche’s morning skate at the Bell Centre. The No. 4-adorned seat is, of course, the vacant space reserved for the late Jean Beliveau.
MONTREAL — Defenseman Zach Redmond, goalie Semyon Varlamov (injured) and winger Gabe Landeskog (suspended) will be the Avalanche scratches Saturday night against the Canadiens at the Bell Centre. Colorado had a full-team morning skate. The Habs did too, but at their practice facility.
The . I spoke to him via phone Friday night. He participated in Saturday’s AM skate.
We’ll have three national anthems before the game: Canadian, American and French, the latter to honor the victims in Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris. The NHL is on high alert, but I’m told the Bell Centre always is.
Avalanche lineup:
Grigorenko-MacKinnon-Duchene
Comeau-Soderberg-Iginla
McLeod-Mitchell-Martinsen
Everberg-Street-Skille
Beauchemin-Johnson
Holden-Barrie
Gormley-Guenin
Berra
Pickard
I sat down with GM Joe Sakic during the morning skate to discuss Matt Duchene, and the Canadian Olympian being recently mentioned on TSN’s “Insider Trading.” Here’s an excerpt; I’m saving much of it for Sunday’s NHL column:
“People talk about your good players,” Sakic said. “I’m not going to comment on rumors. Rumors are always out there. I’m always having conversations with GMs. The GM meetings were last week (in Toronto, around the 2015 Hockey Hall of Fame induction), so a week or two before everyone is talking to each other to get ready for that. We’re all looking to improve our teams. I don’t know where the rumors start but they don’t come from me. This week it was Matt, next week’s is going to be somebody else and the week after it’s going to be somebody on top of that. You come to Canada and they have the Insider Trading. You got to talk about something.”
I also spoke with Duchene. “It’s part of hockey,” he said. “I’m not thinking about it too much. I’m an Av today and I want to be an Av as long as possible. At the same time, it’s a business and I understand that part of it. That’s my standpoint. I’m just focusing on my game.”
More from Duchene in Sunday’s NHL column too.
