It’s been a long and difficult season for Avalanche forward Matt Duchene.
Not only has his team been absolutely brutal in 2016-17, but he also had to deal with plenty of trade speculation.
On more than one occasion, Duchene admitted that being at the center of trade rumors was weighing on him. That probably hasn’t helped his performance on the ice either.
Heading into last night’s action, the Avs forward had no goals in 11 games and just one in his last 25. But on Wednesday, he was finally able to break out of that slump in Colorado’s 3-1 win over Detroit.
With Colorado trailing in the second period, Duchene beat Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard to tie the game at one. As you can tell from the video at the top of the page, Duchene was pretty relieved that the puck went in the net.
“That’s the worst slump I’ve ever been in in my life,” Duchene said, per the Denver Post. “It was just insane, so it was nice to pick that one up tonight. I think everybody could tell by my reaction how relieved I was. I don’t know if I’ve ever scored a goal that felt better than that one.”
He finally scored one Wednesday, but Matt Duchene has still played nearly the equivalent of half a season at a paltry 10 goal, 34 point pace pic.twitter.com/Cf0pt3f0Bu
— StatsCentre (@StatsCentre) March 16, 2017
On another positive note (those have been rare for Colorado this year), rookie J.T. Compher’s first NHL goal proved to be the game-winner:
