What to do about Matt Duchene?
Yes, he can be a streaky scorer and he's had slumps before, but I can't recall him being so invisible on the ice like this.
Coach Jared Bednar demoted him to the third line Saturday in what turned out to be a 4-2 loss to Ottawa at the Pepsi Center, ending Colorado's modest (but longest of the season) winning streak at two games and dropping their record to 19-45-3.
Give the Senators credit for completely shutting down what has been an inept Avalanche offense, but when did they become a reincarnation of the old New Jersey Devils? I only get to see them once a year, but their trapping defense -- while extremely effective -- is anything but entertaining.
Former Avalanche goalie Craig Anderson faced just 16 shots -- four in the second period and two in the third -- for his sixth consecutive win and 147th as a Senator to pass Patrick Lalime for the most in franchise history.
"They're good at it, they just played a 1-3-1," said Nathan MacKinnon, who managed three shots on goal. "Their 'D' are really aggressive, they hold the lines, play really defensively. It was definitely tough. We didn't really pass up any shots, we just couldn't get the puck.
"It just started from the neutral zone and our D-zone, and we couldn't break it out. They were all over us. I don't think we had any controlled entries. Every time we got the puck we were flat-footed and we had to chip it in. It's no fun playing like that, just dumping every puck in."
Anyway, back to Duchene, who has gone 10 games without a point (he has 15 shots in this stretch and is minus-11) and has one goal in 24 games. And yet he remains the Avalanche's leading goal-scorer with 16 in 62 games.
Duchene spent most of the game centering a line with Carl Soderberg and Joe Colborne. How that combination is going to jump-start him is beyond my grasp. He wound up with one shot on goal in 16:21 -- two minutes under his average but three minutes more than he played Thursday against New Jersey, and was minus-3 for the second time in five games.
Colborne, who has one goal in 53 games since his hat trick on opening night, had two shots. Soderberg, who has one goal in his past 40 games and no points in 16, didn't have a shot.
"No," Bednar said when asked if Duchene is in the doghouse. "Why not? Because he's out there playing, he's trying, he's working, and we have to find a way to get him on the board. So he’s going to move around a little bit here. He played probably with all four lines tonight at some point and we have to find a way to get some of those guys productive.…
I got to the mostly-deserted locker room too late to talk to Duchene, who was gone by the time I arrived. The Denver Post's Terry Frei managed to get him for a couple of minutes.
“I’m not going to give you much on this," Duchene said. "I can’t right now ... this is crazy. Know what? I’m going to keep working, be a good team guy. I’ve been here before. I can work out of it. That’s the way things have gone this year.…
Bednar said he expected Colborne “to come in hungry… after being a healthy scratch the previous three games.
“He played last week a little bit with Soderberg,… Bednar said. “They had a pretty good game, the game they played together. So I wanted to try and juggle the lines around a little bit and see if we couldn’t get some production there.…
Not that anyone else was very productive. Matt Nieto gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead halfway through the first period when he tipped in Cody Goloubef's shot for his first goal in 18 games. Newcomer Sven Andrighetto scored a power-play goal with 11.1 seconds left in regulation.
"For me, I don't think we had enough guys tugging on the rope tonight," Bednar said while crediting Ottawa's rock-solid defense. "We showed flashes. We had a slow start and then we worked our way back into the game and we had some opportunities to finish out the first period. We drew some penalties and got a little more dangerous, and then we weren't able to sustain it.
"We were coasting in D-zone coverage instead of closing quickly. We spent too much time in our D zone. We had to chip it out and they just shoved it back in. Just not hard enough, not quick enough for the bulk of that game."
Yup, that's the way things have gone this year.
*****
The Avalanche didn't practice Sunday and traveled to Arizona after their annual charity brunch and fashion show. They play the Coyotes on Monday, then return home to face Detroit on Wednesday at the Pepsi Center.