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Grigorenko back where he started: Russian returning to Bualo, this time with Avs 14 февраля 2016 года. Frei, Terry. Denver Post DETROIT Mikhail Grigorenko has quite a burden to bear Sunday at Buffalo's First Niagara Center. When the Avalanche seeks to finish 3-0 on this road trip with a matinee (10:30 a.m. MST) win over the Sabres, the 21-year-old Russian will be the only on-ice evidence of what Colorado received in the so-far lopsided trade that sent Ryan O'Reilly and Jamie McGinn to Buffalo last summer. "It was my first team, the one I started my career with," Grigorenko said of the Sabres after Colorado's 3-2 shootout win at Detroit on Friday. "It's a big game for us and for me personally. These two points are really important. For me, I'm just going to show them not that they made a mistake, but I want to just play a good game. And it would be nice to score. ... They have really good fans and it's a loud building." Grigorenko, the Sabres' No. 1 pick in the 2012 NHL draft, played 68 games over three seasons with Buffalo before the trade. He isn't able to argue which establishment has the best Buffalo chicken wings -- the Anchor Bar, known as the delicacy's birthplace; or Gabriel's Gate, championed by many locals -- but he said he enjoyed his time in the city. "It was enough to get to know the city, all the good places and bad," Grigorenko said. "People were really nice to me there. It was a good experience." In what the Avs all along have billed as a trade made more for the future than for the present, they acquired Grigorenko; defenseman Nikita Zadorov, 20, now with the San Antonio Rampage of the AHL; winger J.T. Compher, who is having a strong season ... as a University of Michigan junior; and a second-round draft choice. When the Avalanche beat the Sabres 2-1 in the first post-trade matchup of the teams Jan. 20 in Denver, Zadorov also was on the Colorado roster and played 19 minutes that night. But three days later, he was dispatched to the Rampage for the second time this season. It's generally conceded that Zadorov still has tons of potential, but the Avalanche said he needed to play major minutes at San Antonio as part of his progression. Still, in what came down to a choice of which 20-year-old defenseman to keep on the NHL roster at a position considered to be a tougher transition than forward, the Avs went with Chris Bigras, now playing in the third pairing with Andrew Bodnarchuk. Bigras and Zadorov had been recalled from San Antonio on Jan. 13. Zadorov stayed 10 days in his second stint on the roster; Bigras stuck around. Grigorenko has four goals and 12 assists in 50 games with the Avalanche. Those are modest totals, especially compared with the 70 goals he scored in 92 games while playing under Patrick Roy for two seasons in the wide-open Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. For much of their reunion season with the Avalanche, Roy has continued to challenge Grigorenko to pick up his intensity and effort, and to cease being cavalier with the puck. Roy even has made him a healthy scratch eight times. But of late, the coach has praised Grigorenko, who in the wins at Chicago and Detroit was on a line with John Mitchell and Matt Duchene. Grigorenko had the setup assist on Duchene's first- period goal against the Red Wings on Friday. "He made a super play on that (Duchene) goal, there's no doubt about it," Roy said in Detroit. "His puck protection is improving so much. It's the reason he's capable of playing. Looking at the game of today, you need to be very good puck protection-wise, and I feel his game has improved. Now he just needs to keep going at it." |
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