It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Avalanche has a long way to go before it can be considered among the NHL's truly elite teams. The St. Louis Blues have reached that status, but they've been on the verge since Ken Hitchcock took over as coach while the Avalanche has been a non-playoff team for three years.
"They're a good team and we got a lot to learn before we can beat a team like that consistently," center Matt Duchene said Wednesday night after the Blues defeated the Avalanche 4-1 at the Pepsi Center. "They do a lot of really good things and we can learn from them. We also can't give them too much respect. They're in our head a little bit probably, and we have to get rid of that and keep moving on here."
The win was the second for the Blues in two games this season against the Avalanche, whose winning streak ended at three games. The Blues, now 18-3-3 and five points ahead of the Avalanche in the Central Division, had lost eight consecutive games at the Pepsi Center since a 1-0 win April 12, 2009.
You can always count on Duchene for an honest assessment on where the Avalanche stands. It's been a good ride so far; the Avalanche has a 17-6-0 record and sits third in the division with a huge home-and home series with the fourth-place Minnesota Wild this weekend. Both teams have 34 points, but the Avalanche has two more wins and has played three fewer games.
Duchene hopes to be at full strength for the two-game series, which starts Friday in Minnesota. He hasn't had a full practice since sustaining an oblique injury Nov. 16 against Florida and played Wednesday only because center Paul Stastny experienced back spasms and didn't dress.
"It was one of those things where I was going to take two more days, but when Paulie went down it was one of those situations where I need to step in and I felt good enough to do so," Duchene said. "At that point it wasn't precautionary, so we just went with it. I'm thankful to get out of that game without anything more in terms of being hurt. I feel great and I'm looking forward to playing on the weekend."
Duchene skated on a line with Jamie McGinn and PA Parenteau for the first two periods. Ryan O'Reilly replaced McGinn for the third.
Duchene played 17:42, had three shots on goal and was a minus-1. He won 10 of 15 faceoffs and had two official hits.
"The more I played, the better I felt," he said. "It (stinks) that we lost, but it's nice to feel part of the team again."
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The Blues raced to a 3-1 first-period lead and were never threatened. They outshot the Avalanche 9-1 in the first six minutes and grabbed a 2-0 lead on an even-strength goal by David Backes and a power-play goal by Alexander Steen, whose 20th goal of the season tied Washington's Alex Ovechkin for the NHL lead.
Coach Patrick Roy called time immediately after Steen scored, and Patrick Bordeleau scored a little more than two minutes later to pull the Avalanche within 2-1 with his career-high third goal.
The Avalanche had a chance to tie the game on a power play late in the period when Ian Cole went off for holding Duchene. Instead, Blues forward Jaden Schwartz scooped up the puck in his zone after the Avalanche misfired on a pass. Schwartz went end-to-end before firing the puck by goalie Semyon Varlamov's glove at 18:12 for a shorthanded goal and a 3-1 lead.
The Avalanche went 0-for-4 on power plays against a Blues team that has killed 20 of 21 penalties over the past seven games.
"Our power play was brutal," Duchene said. "It felt like at times we didn't want the puck, that we were kind of shoveling off the problem to the next guy. When you're on the power play, you have to want the thing. We have to execute better and we didn't do that, and that let us down for sure."
Former Avalanche right wing Chris Stewart closed out the scoring with an empty-net goal with 1:44 left in the third period. Stewart has five goals this season, two against the Avalanche.
Roy was critical of his top defense pairing, Jan Hejda and Erik Johnson, for the first time this season.
"No doubt they put pressure on our 'D', and our 'D' was not as sharp to get the puck out, especially the pairing of Jan and EJ," he said. "They've been fantastic for us since the start of the year, but tonight they had a very average game. They're key guys on our team, the No. 1 pairing for us, and they need to be at their best every night if we want to be successful. It's not every night where I see Jan falling down and EJ making some average passes."
Hejda and Johnson were only on the ice for one Blues' goal, which Backes scored on a redirection at 2:46 off a nice feed from T.J. Oshie while driving to the net.
Hejda played 19:33, had one shot on goal, two hits, two blocked shots and an even plus/minus rating after assisting on Bordeleau's goal. Johnson played 24:12, had one shot, two hits, two blocked shots and also was even.
Rookie Nathan MacKinnon was minus-2 -- he was on for Stewart's empty-netter -- had one shot in 17:58 of ice time and lost five of six faceoffs. Parenteau and Ryan O'Reilly were minus-2, along with defenseman Andre Benoit.
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Roy was angry at Hitchcock as the game was ending, saying afterward there is a double standard regarding coaches' behavior on the bench. Hitchcock had criticized Roy for his actions at the end of the Avalanche's season-opening win against Anaheim, when Roy got into a shouting match with Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau and nearly toppled the partition between the benches.
"I was very mad at the end because I've been jabbed by different coaches around the league, especially Hitchcock when he said that's junior, stop talking to players and talking to the referee," Roy said. "But I saw a guy on the other side who was talking to players and was also talking to the referee. He got the referee even pissed off. Seems to me there's different rules for everybody in this league. I guess the old guys are allowed to do whatever they want and I guess us, because we're younger, we can't say anything. I'm a little pissed off about that."
Asked if he said anything directly to Hitchcock, Roy answered: "I can't say it here, I'm sorry."
Hitchcock said that Roy should "shut the ... up."