from Don Brennan of the Ottawa Sun,

"I can honestly say it probably bothered me for about 12 hours," Duchene said of hearing his name mentioned as a player that could be on the block. "And then it was over.

"It was because of the way I found out," he continued. "We won in Boston, and my first interview, first question the guy asked me was about trade rumours. I hadn't heard anything about it. So it was kind of sprung on me weird, and it took me a second ... it took me a little bit to digest it."

Duchene knows trades are "part of the game," but Wednesday morning, he was able to express just how much he wants to remain in Colorado.

"Obviously I love playing here," he said, "and I want to be here as long as possible, as long as we're able to put a winning team on the ice.

"I'm happy here. I want to be here. I want to be an Av. I feel like those two things are in place right now, so when that happened, probably right away it was tough, but after that it was motivation, if anything. I think my game was there before, but I was able to keep it there after, which was a good thing."

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