from Mike Chambers of the Denver Post,

Ryan O'Reilly entered the NHL at age 18 in 2009 as a defensive specialist, a young forward with a veteran conscience. Less than five years later, he was regarded as one of the league's premier all-around forwards, coming off a 28-goal season when he garnered a major NHL award.

Currently, however, O'Reilly is mired in an awful individual stretch that mirrors the failures of his team. The Avalanche has won only three of its first 14 games, and O'Reilly has only two goals and a team-worst minus-11 rating, lowest among NHL forwards....

"We try him as a center, we put him on the wing — we've tried a lot of things and, obviously, it hasn't worked out in getting him back on track," Roy said of O'Reilly. "There's a bit of bad luck in that as well, and I think he's lost a bit of his confidence."

O'Reilly is in the first year of a two-year, $12 million contract he signed last summer, after his second holdout in as many years.

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