On the Avalanche and Matt Duchene …
- Mike Ziesberger of the Toronto Sun: Avs Matt Duchene on the trade rumors.
“Did it catch me off-guard? Yeah, a little bit,” Duchene revealed Monday at the Air Canada Centre, where his Avs had just completed practice in preparation for Tuesday’s game against the Maple Leafs.
“It probably was on my mind for about a day but I put it on the backburner after that. I want to be an Av as long as I can. I enjoy playing with this group and I believe we have a lot of potential in this room.
“But it’s also a business and I understand that.”
- Mike Chambers of the Denver Post: Avs GM Joe Sakic (on the weekend) on Matt Duchene rumors.
“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.”
On the Penguins …
- Joe Starkey of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review: If the Penguins don’t start scoring more and winning games, rightly or wrongly, head coach Mike Johnston could be looking for employment elsewhere.
On the Oilers …
- Jonathan Willis of the Edmonton Journal: The Oilers will soon have nine healthy defensemen, and with lots of teams looking for defensemen, a trade or two could happen. Trade options for the Oilers could include Justin Schultz, Mark Fayne, Eric Gryba, Brandon Davidson and Nikita Nikitin.