Avalanche GM Joe Sakic: Matt Duchene trade talks 'quiet on all fronts'

Matt Duchene's messy divorce from the Avalanche is inevitable, but not imminent.

Long the subject of trade speculation, general manager Joe Sakic said Thursday he expects the star center to attend training camp in Colorado when the team reconvenes later this month. And while he remains open for business, the notoriously stubborn Sakic has yet to receive an offer for Duchene that meets his liking.

“I will be listening to offers. Right now it’s quiet on all fronts,” he told The Denver Post. “But I’ll listen to offers on how we can get better. I’ll never name names but I’ll sit there and if something makes sense for the way we want to go, with our team, we’ll really look at that.”

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Duchene, drafted third overall in 2009, is coming off his worst season as a pro, with just 18 goals and 41 points for the last-place Avs.

Nevertheless, a Duchene trade has been anticipated, if not expected, since June's draft, when a market for the 26-year-old's service theoretically intensified. It picked up again July 1, with any number of teams — the Blue Jackets, Predators, Islanders and Canadiens reportedly among them — involved in discussions.

But Sakic is asking a lot: a young defenseman plus some combination of top prospects or draft picks and possibly the moon. Thus far he's been unwilling to budge.

For his part, Duchene has done his best to quell the drama.

"I think right now I’m pretty relaxed, I know whatever’s going to happen is gonna happen,” he said earlier this month. “I don’t really have control of it and I’m just worried about being at the top of my game and kind of getting to where I was kind of the first half of last season, before everything kind of fell apart (for) everybody in Colorado.

"I feel good right now, probably as good as I felt at any point during the year."

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Duchene admitted to burning out in January with the Avs already well out of the playoff picture, and it stands to benefit neither player nor team to enter another season with a malcontent on the roster. But it sounds like that will be the case.

Though Sakic has every reason to hold out for the right return, his rivals seem up for playing the waiting game too.