It wasn’t too long ago that a report surfaced saying that the Avalanche were willing to listen to offers on forward Matt Duchene.
When a player’s struggling and rumors start swirling, one of two things tends to happen.
Either the player involved lets it affect his on-ice performance in a negative way or he’s motivated by the trade talk and turns his struggles around.
Instead of pouting, the 24-year-old rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
In October, Duchene scored a goal and an assist in 10 games, but things changed in a hurry when November rolled around.
The Avs forward has picked up at least one point in 11 of 13 games this month.
Duchene has 11 goals and nine assists in November and he still has a game to go before the calendar flips to December.
“Obviously, things completely flip-flopped,” Duchene told the Denver Post. “That’s the coldest start I’ve ever had and things are good right now. Obviously, I know it could go right back, I could go cold again, that’s just the nature of the game. You just have to work every day to keep it going. The most important thing is to be able to provide offense and help the team win.”
Per @EliasSports: @Matt9Duchene (11 goals in Nov.) is 1st @Avalanche player w/ 11+ goals in a calendar month since Feb. 2003 (M. Hejduk: 12)
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) November 29, 2015
.@Matt9Duchene now has 11 goals in the month of November, breaking Claude Lemieux's Avalanche record of 10 in November 1995. #AvsNotes
— Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) November 29, 2015