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Updated: Tanguay on IR, Malone recalled from Lake Erie |
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Rick Sadowski
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The Avalanche has put right wing Alex Tanguay (knee) on injured reserve, joining defenseman Ryan Wilson (back), and recalled forward Brad Malone from the Lake Erie Monsters of the American Hockey League.
The Avalanche is hoping that center Matt Duchene (oblique injury) will only miss one week. Defenseman Tyson Barrie was recalled Sunday from Lake Erie and skated Monday. Malone arrived too late to practice.
"First of all, when you lose Duchene and Tanguay, you don't replace guys like this," coach Patrick Roy said. "At the same time, it's an opportunity for others."
Malone played well in training camp, but Roy chose to keep two extra defensemen and one extra forward, who turned out to be waiver pickup Marc-Andre Cliche. Malone had four goals, four assists and 25 penalty minutes in 15 games with Lake Erie.
Barrie had one assist in five games with the Avalanche before he was assigned to Lake Erie on Nov. 4. He had three assists in six games with the Monsters.
Roy said this is how the lineup will look for Tuesday's game against Chicago at the Pepsi Center, from left to right:
FORWARDS
Landeskog -- MacKinnon -- O'Reilly
McGinn -- Stastny -- Parenteau
McLeod -- Mitchell -- Talbot
Malone -- Cliche -- Bordeleau
DEFENSE
Johnson -- Hejda
Benoit -- Guenin
Holden -- Barrie
GOALIES
Semyon Varlamov
Jean-Sebastien Giguere
Matt Hunwick and Cory Sarich will be scratched. Sarich will be back Thursday against Phoenix. Roy said Sarich is healthy and just wants to give him a rest.
Roy said a decision on which goalie to use against Phoenix and Los Angeles later in the week will be made in conjunction with goalie coach Francois Allaire, who was to arrive back in Denver on Monday night.
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The Avalanche has been outscored 13-5 during its three-game losing streak to fall into fourth place in the Central Division and eighth place in the Western Conference despite a 14-5-0 record that would be best in the East (before Monday's games).
"I don't know if I would consider three games a slump," Roy said. "Like I said to the guys, I'm very proud of them. Since the start of the year we've been working hard and we've been really receptive to teaching. My standpoint is, I haven't changed. It hasn't changed one bit. With the start that we had, people started thinking differently about us, which is what we wanted at some point.
"It's one game at a time and we'll be focused on Chicago. It's a learning process for everybody. (The Blackhawks are) a really good team with a lot of talent and people in Denver love to come and watch those games. It's really entertaining and hopefully it will be another good show for our fans."
What do Avalanche players need to do to get out of this rut and get back on track?
"Let's say we have a bad period, that doesn't mean it has to be bad result-wise," Roy said. "We have to go back to what I call a foundation of our team. If we have a bad period, we have to go back to team basics. How are we going to forecheck? How are we going to play in the neutral zone and how are we going to play in our D-zone coverage? This morning we worked hard on our D-zone coverage. If we can just play better defensively and cut down on shots, the rest of the period should be good and then you regroup."
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Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said no one is panicking about the losing streak.
"A lot of teams around the league have been going through a tough time lately," he said. "Take it one period at a time and get back to basics and we'll be all right. We have every reason in the world to be confident. There's no reason for us to start doubting ourselves just because we lost three in a row. All the good teams -- Anaheim's gone through a rough patch, Chicago lost 7-2 to Nashville. We had a rough patch, but we have all the reasons in the world to stay positive."
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