With a goal in the Avalanche’s 3-1 win over Detroit at home on March 15, Matt Duchene ended a pointless streak at 11 games.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever scored a goal that felt better than that one,” he said that night.
Duchene’s hope was that the goals and assists would come in bunches, that his tendency to be streaky — as so many players are — would enable him to point to that night as the start of a productive run in the final three weeks of the Avalanche’s horrible season.
Duchene hasn’t scored since.
His latest streak of pointless games reached nine in the Avalanche’s 5-2 road loss to Minnesota Sunday, and he has just the one point — that March 15 goal against the Red Wings — in his past 21 games.
Duchene prefers to play center, but he has been switched back to right wing, where he has had productive runs in his career, and is playing with center J.T. Compher and winger Gabe Landeskog.
“I feel like I haven’t changed my game,” Duchene said last week. “I feel like I’m playing good hockey and it’s just one of those things that the puck’s not going in the net.”
Duchene, 26, has 17 goals and 37 points in 72 games, and this comes a season after he reached the 30-goal benchmark for the first time in his career. In plus-minus, Duchene (minus-36) and teammate Tyson Barrie (minus-31) are the worst in the NHL. In Duchene’s case, the terrible plus-minus more represents his offensive struggles — and the lack of pluses — than defensive indifference. This is playing out against the backdrop of a 21-54-3 season that will be by far the worst in the league and by far the franchise’s worst 82-game record in Denver.
“I feel like I’m doing the right things out there,” Duchene said. “Watching my games and talking to coaches, things are where they’re supposed to be. … I’m just extremely snakebit right now. I guess if there’s ever a time to go through this in my career, it’s probably the best time to go through it now.
“We’re not in the playoff push right now and I’m in this dry spell. It’s part of the game, it happens to everybody throughout their career and the only thing you can do is just keep the good habits and keep being aggressive and playing the best hockey you can.”
Duchene had a prime scoring chance late in the Sunday loss to the Wild, but Minnesota goalie Devan Dubnyk was able to tip the puck with his glove.
“It’s not like I’ve changed the way I’ve played,” Duchene said. “It’s not like I’m not creating plays, I’m not creating chances, I’m not getting chances. The puck’s just not going in the net. There are a lot of guys in tough stretches. Mine’s probably the worst, but there are other guys going through the same thing.
“If it was me all alone, it would be one thing, but it’s just the nature of our team right now. It’s been really tough to score as a group. For our offensive guys, it’s been an extremely frustrating year for everyone. Nobody’s really happy with where they’re at.”
Duchene also has gone through the unsettling experience of knowing that general manager Joe Sakic has been straightforward about considering trade offers for him, plus virtually everyone else in the organization not named Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen or Tyson Jost. The trading deadline passed March 1, but the market reopens in the offseason.
“It’s been an absolute terrible year,. to put it mildly, for everybody,” Duchene said. “It looked so promising a few years back and now it’s become this way this year. It’s been really hard on all of us, myself included.”
Recalls. The Avalanche didn’t practice Monday, but recalled defenseman Duncan Siemens and center Rocco Grimaldi from San Antonio.
Siemens, 23, was the Avalanche’s first-round pick, at No. 11 overall, in 2011, but hasn’t been able to crack and stay on the Colorado roster, even as other organizational defensemen get looks. He played one game — the final one of of the season — for the Avalanche in 2014-15, and otherwise, this has been his fourth full season in the AHL.
Grimaldi, 24, came to Colorado from Florida for goalie Reto Berra last summer. He has played one game for the Avalanche this season, against Dallas on Dec. 3, and has 29 goals and 22 assists in 68 games for the Rampage.
Both Siemens and Grimaldi are in the final year of their contracts and can be restricted free agents on July 1, if they are made qualifying offers; or otherwise will become unrestricted free agents.
There is no roster limit after the trading deadline, and now the Avalanche will have 15 forwards, nine defensemen and two goalies. (In addition, goalie Semyon Varlamov and defenseman Nikita Zadorov are injured.) Defenseman Anton Lindholm slammed into the boards in the third period and suffered a cut head Sunday at Minnesota and returned for one shift before heading to the dressing room. But there was no additional word on his status Monday.
CHICAGO AT COLORADO, 7 p.m., Tuesday, ALT2, 92.5 FM
Spotlight on: Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville
“Q” went through three separate NHL runs in Denver — as a Colorado Rockies defenseman from 1979-82, as an Avalanche assistant coach from 1995-97 and as head coach from 2005-08. It started when, as a 21-year-old, he and future Hall of Famer Lanny McDonald came to the Rockies from the Toronto Maple Leafs for Pat Hickey and Wilf Paiement on Dec. 29, 1979. He was part of the Avalanche’s Stanley Cup win in 1996 and, as head coach, presided over three consecutive 95-point seasons, advancing to the playoffs twice with only moderately talented teams and losing in the second round both times.
Blackhawks: Chicago had won two in a row before losing 3-2 to the Bruins on Sunday at the United Center. … Artemi Panarin had one of the Blackhawks goals and he has scored in four consecutive games. … The Blackhawks don’t have a lot to play for at the moment. They clinched the Central Division title and home-ice through the Western Conference finals Saturday when the Wild lost at Nashville. … This is the first stop on a season-concluding three-game road trip and the Blackhawks already have matched the franchise record of 24 road wins.
Avalanche: In his first two games, Tyson Jost has gone pointless, has three shots on goal and has averaged 14 minutes, 41 seconds of ice time. … The Avalanche has a shot at an ignominious “superfecta.” Colorado is 30th in the 30-team league in goals per game (2.0), goals allowed (3.4) and power play percentage (12.7) and is 29th in penalty killing (76.5 percent). Only Dallas, at 73.9 percent, is worse in penalty killing. … This is the Avs’ next-to-last home game. They finish up the at Pepsi Center on Thursday against Minnesota before closing out the season at Dallas on Saturday and St. Louis on Sunday.
