Morning Flurries: Matt Duchene is sticking around (for now)

The Colorado Avalanche had a day of rest on Friday in preparation of their road game back-to-backs, where they’ll face off against the Flyers on Saturday and the Islanders on Sunday before hopping on a plane to play a two-game series against the Ottawa Senators in Sweden.

It should have been a reasonably slow day for Colorado fans, coming off a tough Semyon Varlamov-led win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday.

Instead, a few NHL insiders decided to break the internet by revealing an already-dead trade proposal.

According to both Darren Dreger and Elliotte Friedman on Twitter, Colorado was close to pulling the trigger on a three-way deal with the Ottawa Senators and the Nashville Predators to move Matt Duchene up to Ontario. According to the rumors, Duchene would have landed in Ottawa just a week before Colorado faced them in Sweden, while Kyle Turris solidified some center depth for the Nashville Predators and an unreported haul made its way back to Colorado.

It was believed that Mattias Ekholm was a part of the talks in the three-way deal early on - understandable from Colorado’s point of view - but if Friedman is to be believed, he had been removed from the table by the time the deal was killed. Instead, it’s possible that Nashville’s final offer (which likely explains why nothing worked out) was picks and a prospect.

It’s disappointing from a number of angles that nothing got worked out, although it sounds like Colorado is close to getting something done. If you took the under on Duchene getting traded by the deadline this upcoming spring, get ready - you may cash in soon.

The original tweet has since been deleted - it appears that even Friedman thought the deal was finalized - but here it is in all its screenshot glory:

Fun while it lasted!

In other news around the league, Mikhail Sergachev - best known for now as the prospect Montreal traded away for Jonathan Drouin, but likely known before long as Tampa Bay’s most valuable young defender - is having himself a hell of a year already. [Raw Charge]

Also, speaking of rookies: the Pittsburgh Penguins finally found a goaltender that can win them games. Is Tristan Jarry the piece the team needed behind Matt Murray? [Pensburgh]

The University of Denver dropped their first of a two-game series against Western Michigan on Friday - but if you haven’t caught up on the action, here’s a preview of what to expect from each of the two teams. [Mile High Hockey]

Remember that game where Colorado lit up Anton Forsberg and wrecked Chicago last week? Here’s a technical look at which goals Forsberg could have prevented - and which ones, well, were just Colorado being great. It’s nice to be able to say that again, eh? [The Athletic Chicago]

And now... it’s time for Olympic jerseys!

The NHL won’t be playing in the 2018 Winter Olympics, which is disappointing from a talent standpoint - but while the players may be upset they can’t represent their respective nations, it’s hard to imagine they’re too upset about missing out on wearing some of these highly questionable designs:

Go ahead, peep all this madness:

Who designed these, you may ask?

Well, we aren’t sure, but we think they strongly favor Sweden - the only nation, it seems, that gets to wear something non-embarrassing this year.

These sleeves are problematic, and people have a lot of opinions about it. [The Ice Garden]