Duchene denies rift with Roy: 'There (were) never any problems'

Tales of a rocky relationship between Matt Duchene and former Colorado Avalanche head coach Patrick Roy were way overblown.

So says Duchene himself, who let it be known that Roy called him personally just hours after announcing he was resigning from his post.

"We had an awesome chat," Duchene told Mike Zeisberger of Postmedia. "We didn’t discuss why he left. We mostly talked about the past. I learned a lot from him. He said he enjoyed coaching me. That was great to hear from one of my heroes as a kid.

"That’s the end of that chapter and it ended on a great note for him and I. There (were) never any problems there."

One of the examples of possible contention between the two - aside from rampant trade speculation as recent as last season - was Roy's criticism of Duchene celebrating his 30th goal of the season amid another loss.

Again, Duchene says that was much ado about nothing.

"At the end of the day it wasn’t anything against me," he said of Roy's call out. "He was just trying to set a precedent for the team and make an example of me. He expected me to be a leader and at that moment I let him down. We had a great chat the next day and right then everything was fine. It was blown out of proportion in the media. It was really nothing after that.

"After that, it was tough to read stuff that pitted us against each other because it was never that way."

Duchene, along with many Avalanche players, was shocked to hear Roy was leaving the team, and will get a chance to meet new head coach Jared Bednar following his time with Canada at the World Cup of Hockey.