Duchene scores twice in shutout of Tampa Bay
tampa, fla.» Earlier than usual, Matt Duchene is heating up offensively. The Avalanche forward didn’t get his second goal last season until his 12th game. He went on to produce a teamhigh 30 goals, tops in his career.
Duchene was in another rut this month, pointless in his first three games of the new season. But that rut leveled out Thursday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning, another Eastern Conference power Colorado faced during its treacherous four-game trip.
Duchene’s two goals and three points carried the Avs to a 4-0 victory at Amalie Arena, where they also won a year ago. Duchene scored in the final minute of the first and second periods to give Colorado a 2-0 lead going into the third. He added an assist in the third period for his three-point night.
“This year was different. Other years, my game wasn’t there beforehand,” Duchene said . “But I felt like I was doing some good things, even though I wasn’t on the scoresheet. It was nice to get on there tonight.”
The Avs had only 16 shots, but they built a 2-0 lead on 14 of them, and their only two shots of the third period were goals. Andreas Martinsen scored on a for-
tunate bounce to make it 3-0 at 7:53 into the third period, and Carl Soderberg struck at 12:22 on a nifty wrist shot off the crossbar. Goalie Semyon Varlamov (27 saves) was excellent, and the Avs’ penalty kill was perfect (3-for-3) for the first time this season.
“I thought it was a great bounce-back game for our team after the way we played in Washington,” said first-year Avs coach Jared Bednar, who absorbed his first NHL loss in a 3-0 drubbing against the Capitals on Tuesday. “We were disappointed. To me, that’s probably the new bar for our team right there.”
The Avs are 3-1 and feeling pretty good about themselves under Bednar. They have perhaps the tough- est first-five-game schedule in the league, facing Central Division champion Dallas (6-5 win), Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh (4-3 overtime win), Presidents’ Trophy winner Washington (3-0 loss) and Tampa Bay, which has played in the Eastern Conference finals the last two years. The Avs conclude the trip Saturday at Florida, the defending Atlantic Division champ.
“It’s a great start based on the opponents we’ve played,” Avalanche veteran defenseman Francois Beauchemin said. “We’ve played four teams that went deep in the playoffs last year. These are tough games to play, and I thought we had a great response tonight after the effort we gave in Washington. It’s not just a win; it’s the way we played tonight. We kept things simple. We made the easy play instead of forcing things up the middle.”
Duchene scored on a rebound and redirection. His put-back of his own rebound on a semi-breakaway gave the Avs a 1-0 lead at 19:35 of the first period, and his redirection off Patrick Wiercioch’s slap shot put Colorado in command 2-0 at 19:08 of the second.