Roy: "I'd be very surprised" if Avalanche trades O'Reilly

Colorado Avalanche head coach and VP of hockey operations Patrick Roy was on KKFN 104.3 on Thursday morning.

On if he can comment on people thinking Ryan O’Reilly is playing his last few games for the Avalanche:

“Well, I certainly could comment on that. Every night I’ve been using him a lot. Yes, I use him on important faceoffs, penalty killing, power play, 5-on-5, against top lines. I’m having a lot of trust in him. I’d be very surprised if we do a trade with Ryan O’Reilly.

“The contract dispute to me is just the business side. For me as a coach, I push that aside. It’s not even important. Even for Joe, we’re not making a big deal out of that. I know that it seems to be a big deal, but obviously when you see a guy like him becoming UFA at the end of next year... it forced Joe to look into it. But it’s not in our intention to move Ryan O’Reilly. Actually, we’d love to see Ryan O’Reilly be an Avalanche for a long time. Joe has spoke to his agent a bit in the last few days and yes we’d like to have Ryan signing a long-term deal.

“... It’s a tough business. Gretzky’s been traded. I’ve been traded. Trades are always part of – unfortunately they are part of the game. But I don’t see how we could trade a guy like him right now, quite honestly. He’s part of the core of the team. We like him a lot. That line’s been playing really well. We’re very happy with that. Even if we don’t have the season that we want, we like the core of this team. We believe in the core of this team and I don’t see us making huge change in the core of our team.”

Source: 104.3/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey

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