A Duchene Spotted in His Natural Habitat
So I decided to take a video of this momentous occasion, seeing as the footage lasted about three seconds. Alas, WordPress said the file was too big. And I suck at screencapping. The end.
Matt Duchene is good friends with Sidney Crosby. This was made clear as they were spotted in a box together at the Stanley Cup Final Game 3. Crosby was looking very grumpy, so it makes sense that he would bring the always affable Duchene with him. Duchene is such a positive, happy person, it is difficult not to feel cheered up when he’s around.
Duchene also feels that he became good friends with Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings during the 2011 All Star Game, and is probably supporting “Kopi.” It was good to see Duchene back in his natural habitat, a hockey arena, seeing as he usually spends his summer taking pictures in various fishing boats.
This serious, hard-hitting reporter, will be here all summer.
Everyone Wants to Return on Thursday!
- Photo: Bridget Samuels/Flickr.
21-28 days. That is how long Matt Duchene was expected to be out with his ankle injury. If all goes according to plan, he will be in tomorrow night’s lineup. 9 days later. Either there are some poor mathematicians in the press department, or he visited Hogwarts. Apparently Duchene could have played in tonight’s game, but with the back to back, they decided to hold him out until tomorrow night in New Jersey. The fact that he has not missed a lot of time should make his readjustment period shorter than it was after his knee injury. Hopefully, he will be able to come in and contribute right away. (Also, he will be making his grand return on the same night that Sidney Crosby is coming back from his concussion. Apparently everyone wants to return with Crosby.)
Some other good news on the injury front is that Chuck Kobasew might be available to play in tonight’s game. Kobasew suffered a back injury a couple of weeks ago, but is doing better. Even if he is available tonight, I do not think he will be in the lineup, as the Avs are on a two game winning streak, and Kobasew is not the star player that gets reinserted into the lineup regardless of the team’s performance in the previous game.
In tonight’s game, Semyon Varlamov will get the start against Ryan Miller. The Sabres have been playing very good hockey recently, and Miller is playing up to his all-star capabilities. For the Avs to beat Buffalo, they need to play a tight defensive game. If they stay patient, and pepper Miller with a lot of shots (and take advantage of secondary chances) they should give themselves a good chance for success. Hopefully they will play with more structure than they have the past two games. Tyler Myers will not be playing, as he is serving a three game suspension for a hit on Scott Gomez. Myers won the Calder trophy the year that Duchene was nominated.
Also, a lot of fans have been “Landeskoging” or imitating Landeskog’s celebration after scoring the game winner against Anaheim. I have never really understood the “planking”, “owling”, “Tebowing”, etc phases. Still, props to you if you have taken up Landeskoging. And here is a good article on Mark Olver, written by Mike Chambers of the Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/avalanche/ci_20168389/avs-rookie-mark-olver-subbing-injured-star-matt
