Duchene feels at home outdoors, with Senators

OTTAWA -- Matt Duchene grew up on Riverside Drive in Haliburton, Ontario. The day he discovered ice on the driveway, it sparked his young Canadian imagination.
"Hey, Dad," he said. "Let's build a rink there."

"OK," his dad said. "Let's try it."
They went to Canadian Tire and bought Jiffy Rink. They spread out the plastic, filled it with water, let it freeze and cut off the top, and there, to the left of the family bungalow, in the turnaround area near the carport, was where Duchene would spend hours and hours and hours, his mom on him for not wearing enough layers.
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Duchene skated on the driveway each winter from the time he was 10 until he left home for junior, and he skated on it when he came home for Christmas too, because his dad kept building the rink for his sister. He wasn't too old, wasn't too cool, wasn't too cold.
"I love it," he said. "The colder, the better, I think."
He laughed.
"Well, not too cold."
Well, put on a pot of hot chocolate, because when Duchene plays for the Ottawa Senators against the Montreal Canadiens in the 2017 Scotiabank NHL100 Classic at Lansdowne Park on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; NBSN, CBC, SN, TVA Sports, NHL.TV), it's supposed to be 7 degrees Fahrenheit at face-off.
"A little brisk air, I think, will be perfect, so the ice will be hard," Duchene said. "It's going to be a lot of fun."

Duchene didn't dream of this years ago, exactly. He didn't dream of this months ago, either. He started this season with the Colorado Avalanche, for whom he had played since they took him No. 3 in the 2009 NHL Draft. He went to the Senators on Nov. 5 in a three-way trade that sent center Kyle Turris to the Nashville Predators and a package of assets to the Avalanche.
It has been a tough transition. Duchene was traded during a game, leaving the Avalanche bench in the first period of a 6-4 loss to the New York Islanders at Barclays Center. His first two games for the Senators were in the 2017 SAP NHL Global Series in Stockholm, Sweden, and they came against … the Avalanche.
Duchene was acquired to be a dynamic center for a team that was within an overtime goal of going to the Stanley Cup Final last season, losing Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final to the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2 in double OT. Since the trade, he has five points (two goals, three assists) in 16 games, and the Senators have gone 4-10-2, sinking to seventh in the Atlantic Division with 27 points (10-13-7).
But Duchene said he has adjusted to coach Guy Boucher's system and developed chemistry with his teammates.
"Over the last probably five, six, seven games, I've felt really good and started to get really comfortable with guys," Duchene said. "Guys are starting to be able to read me, and I'm able to read them. That's part of the process in a new team. I didn't get preseason. I didn't get training camp to do that. So it takes a little bit of time sometimes."
Duchene played for the Avalanche against the Detroit Red Wings in the 2016 Coors Light NHL Stadium Series at Coors Field in Denver. But they lost 5-3, and it was 65 degrees at face-off, the warmest of the 22 stadium games the NHL has played. It wasn't in the cold, in his home province, against the Canadiens, next to the Rideau Canal, not far from Parliament Hill.

"You're playing for a Canadian team against a Canadian team in the capital of Canada," Duchene said.
The Senators defeated the New York Rangers 3-2 at Canadian Tire Centre on Wednesday. What would a win here mean to them? What will this experience mean to the kid from Haliburton?
"Obviously we've gone through a tough stretch," Duchene said. "We probably haven't won as many games we've deserved to win in this stretch. We've played a lot of games like we played last game -- I mean, games where we're outshooting teams, games where we're probably the better team over the course of 60 minutes -- and the results haven't been there. So it was nice to get that [win], and now this is awesome.
"We get back to our roots here. For me, I grew up in a cold climate like Ottawa, and skating outside was one of my favorite things I did. So getting a chance to do that on this stage is going to be so cool."