Duchene The Avalanche's Road Warrior

BOSTON--Matt Duchene has scored all 10 of his goals this season on the road. Not that he's complaining.
Duchene once again tallied in a visiting building as he opened the scoring Thursday in the Colorado Avalanche's 4-2 victory over the Boston Bruins at TD Garden. His 10 road markers are tied for second in the NHL with Boston's David Pastrnak and are one behind leader Sidney Crosby of Pittsburgh (11).

The forward began the Avs' run of three straight goals when he tallied at 5:30 of the first period. He cut inside from the right circle, made a move in the slot and then placed the puck far side of the cage for his third goal in two games; he tallied twice on Tuesday in Nashville.

"I can't score at home, and we're on the road. It feels good," Duchene said. "Obviously, back-to-back games and to get us off on the right foot tonight. We haven't scored the first goal many times this year, and the nights that we have we've usually won. So it felt good to get on the board early."
Colorado is now 5-2 when getting the first tally. The club last scored the opening marker on Nov. 23 against the Edmonton Oilers.
Duchene's goal, which tied him for eighth place on the franchise's all-time list with Valeri Kamensky (166), was an early momentum boost for the Avalanche and helped build a nice lead in enemy territory.
"It's good to score that first goal and play with the lead. There's absolutely no doubt," Colorado head coach Jared Bednar said. "I think that at that point when you're going [through] something like our team is going through, there's a little doubt in everyone's mind, I think. There's a lot of game to play, but to respond again and get the second one I think kind of settled our guys down."
The Bruins came out swinging in the second period, firing 13 shots and getting two goals from Pastrnak in a 1:20 time frame midway through the stanza. But the Avs didn't allow the B's to tie the contest, and they extended their lead back to two with Carl Soderberg's score late in the frame.
"We haven't done it much this year, so it's pretty relieving to get that first one--obviously, the first three," Duchene said. "We almost blew it there in the second, but we stuck with it. We were still with the lead."

Now in his eighth year in the NHL, Duchene has never lost at the home rink of the Bruins. In fact, Colorado is 10-0-1 in its last 11 visits and has won nine straight in Boston.
"I like playing here. I enjoy it. It's a good atmosphere, Original Six team. It's exciting," Duchene said. "Obviously, we don't see a lot of Original Six teams in our division and in the West. Most of them are kind of in the East. It's always special to play in a big market like that and play in front of rowdy fans. This is a pretty historic franchise, and it's always fun to play in a great town like this."
The Avs' last defeat in Massachusetts was March 30, 1998.
With the two-game season series now complete, the Bruins will have to wait until next year to try and end the Avalanche's dominance in Beantown.

SODA POPPING IN BOSTON

Boston is a special place for forward Carl Soderberg. It's the city where he began his NHL career, as he played his first 161 games with the Bruins.
It appears as if he enjoys coming back to TD Garden as he's now scored in each of his first two visits to the arena as a member of the opposition.
"I have some good memories from here," said Soderberg after Thursday's win. "When I got into Boston yesterday, I had a great feeling about this game. Nice goal and good win."
Soderberg's fourth tally of the year extended Colorado's lead to 4-2 with 2:55 left in the second stanza. He took a quick pass from Mikhail Grigorenko in the low right slot and fired a blistering wrist shot into the cage before Bruins netminder Anton Khodobin could get over to make the save.
The Malmo, Sweden, native scored in his first return trip to Boston on Nov. 12, 2015. He went on to post a career-high 51 points (12 goals, 39 assists) in his first season with the Avalanche last year.

GOING ON YOUR OWN

Sometimes if you want to do something well, you have to do it yourself.
That's what the Avalanche did on its first three goals Thursday, as all three of them came unassisted.
"I think that's not probably the way you normally score goals--three unassisted--but when you're doing the right things in coverage then good things will come your way," Bednar said. "I thought we did that for the most part tonight."
Duchene said the trio of tallies came from the Avs putting good pressure on the Bruins, which resulted in markers from Nathan MacKinnon and John Mitchell on rushes.
"That was kind of the reason for all of them being unassisted," Duchene said. "Obviously, Nate made a big play intercepting the puck and getting it kind of out and their guy kind of fumbled it. Then Mitchy, we were able to turn the puck over on them, and then Mitchy made kind of a block at the blue line. So kind of strange how the first three went unassisted."

MITCHELL OFF THE SCHNEID

John Mitchell scored his first goal of the season Thursday night, and it ended up being an important one.
Mitchell's tally at 4:09 of the second period gave Colorado a 3-0 lead, but it became the game-winner after Boston's David Pastrnak recorded two markers in the middle of the stanza.
The tally ended a 27-game goalless drought for Mitchell, as his last score came on March 24 against Philadelphia.
In his previous four campaigns with the Avs, Mitchell had recorded his first goal in his first contest of the season.