from Adrian Dater of the Denver Post,

"My first (couple of years), if I wasn't scoring or things weren't going well, I would come to practice the next day and I would put so much pressure on myself to score. And then if I didn't, I would get down and it would carry on to the next day," Duchene said. "Now, if I have a slump, I just stay consistent with what works, because it will eventually work.

"Same thing on the flip side; before if I got hot, I would be so excited and on cloud nine. I may be like that now on the inside, but I don't show it."

Duchene not only changed his mind-set before last season, he changed his body. He switched to a gluten-free diet, which helped him drop weight without sacrificing muscle mass. He played well in the NHL's lockout-shortened season and was rewarded this past offseason with a five-year, $30 million contract extension that will kick in next season. While he was happy with his growth on the ice, he was still miserable much of the time. Losing does that.

He also wasn't happy playing for Sacco. At the time, he kept his opinions to himself. But no more.

"There were very few people in this (dressing) room who were happy. Our style of play, it wasn't right for this team. We knew it would fail," Duchene said. "That was the hard part. We knew (any) success was going to be short-lived. It was hard to really be excited about it. For myself, it was really hard to look at what we were doing and think it would keep on working. I can honestly say now, it's not like that."

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