Colorado Avalanche Center Matt Duchene Banged Up at World Cup

Center Matt Duchene has been injured during the World Cup of Hockey. While not significant, the injury can impact the Colorado Avalanche.

The Colorado Avalanche’s best player, center Matt Duchene, was injured in one of the World Cup of Hockey’s preliminary games:

#Canada‘s Matt Duchene in some pain as he heads to the bench after that shift.

— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) September 9, 2016

In fact, he ended up having to miss one of the games:

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I TOLD YOU ALL! TOLD YOU THE WORLD CUP WAS A MENACE! !!!!!!!😬😡 https://t.co/0MGtHdbjLK

— Nadia Archuleta (@Hockeygrrls) September 14, 2016

Because at the end of the day, I don’t have a dog in the race in the World Cup of Hockey. As a Colorado Avalanche fan, I care about six players on five different teams. And losing any one of them would be disastrous, as I pointed out here:

Now, Matt Duchene’s injury was minor. He’s supposed to be ready to go in the actual World Cup tournament, which starts this weekend. I have two things to say to that:

Actually, I’m going to add to that — he got injured in a preliminary game of a tournament that means nothing except money for the NHL, and he’s pushing through said injury.

That also means a couple more things. He’s going to be coming into the preseason beat up. This is more than your usual fatigue from training and playing scrimmages. As we’ve seen already, players are going hard in this tourney.

It could be that Matt Duchene is so injured he won’t be able to participate in any preseason games or even some of the first games. The current injury obviously isn’t too bad, but remember — he’s playing through it. That often leads to worsening or further injury.

Even if Matt Duchene doesn’t injure himself any further, the new Colorado Avalanche coach — who’s never coached NHL players before — is going to have to make a tough decision. Does he play Matt Duchene in any of the preseason games, thus cementing a little chemistry among players said coach has never even met before? Or does he let the Avalanche’s best player heal up?

And if he lets Duchene — or any of the World Cuppers — heal up, doesn’t that undo the momentum they were supposed to feel from this tournament?

Basically, this all comes down to the argument I made before — the World Cup of Hockey is a disaster for NHL teams. Yes, fans get hockey a few days earlier. But, really, with the rookie showcase coming up this weekend, and the Burgundy and White game next weekend, is it really worth it?

For Colorado Avalanche fans, I feel the answer is no.