The Colorado Avalanche have had success with 2009 draftees Matt Duchene and Ryan O'Reilly. The third member of that draft class, Stefan Elliott, appeared ready for the league by scoring a goal in his NHL debut.

The top of the 2009 draft appears to be paying off handsomely for the Colorado Avalanche.

Center Matt Duchene was taken third overall, center Ryan O’Reilly went 33rd and defenseman Stefan Elliott was taken 49th.

Duchene has been as good as advertised, O’Reilly has been solid and, if his first game is any indication, Elliott looks like someone ready to compete in the league.

The 20-year-old scored the go-ahead goal midway through the third period and the Avalanche beat Edmonton 5-2 Saturday. He did so during a four-goal barrage when he threw a wrist shot through traffic at the net.

"It's definitely nice to knock off both of those at once. It's something special," Elliott said. "It’s really exciting for me; I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He is the first defenseman in team history to score a goal in his NHL debut, and the first in franchise history since Quebec’s Jean-Marc Richard did it on Feb. 2, 1988. Elliott is also the first Avs player to score in his NHL debut since Vaclav Nedorost on Oct. 3, 2001.

“Skillful defensemen can find those little holes, and he's a skillful D-man," defenseman Shane O'Brien said. "For his first NHL game, his poise was great. He played a lot of minutes (19:36), so obviously the coaching staff believes in him. He was the difference in the game for us.” 

After a slow start, Duchene has seven goals in his past 12 games and O’Reilly leads the team with a dozen helpers to go along with his two goals. Known more as two-way center, O’Reilly is also among the league leaders in takeaways.

"It really does look good, obviously, for the present and the future when you have those three guys," Avs coach Joe Sacco said Sunday. "Elliott is going to certainly be a strong power-play guy in this league for a long time. That's obviously the strength of his game, his ability to make plays and show poise with the puck.

"His poise defensively is really impressive too. You go back to his junior stats, and he led the Western League every year in plus-minus. So he obviously knows how to play the game at both ends at the ice."

One of the last players cut during training camp, Elliott was called up from AHL Lake Erie when defenseman Erik Johnson was placed on injured reserve with a groin injury. Elliott had two goals and seven assists in 18 games with the Monsters.

Playing for Saskatoon in the Western Hockey League last season, Elliott had a league-best 31 goals from the blue line and tied for the league lead with 81 points and won the Bill Hunter Memorial Trophy as the WHL’s Defenseman of the Year. 

Elliott made a first game impression with his defense, too, breaking up a potential 2-on-1 moment before scoring the eventual winner.

"He showed good poise with the puck and he showed a lot of poise defensively," Sacco said. "We had a couple of big plays by a guy playing his first game in the NHL. It was good to see."

The Avalanche need every positive they can muster as the season passes the quarter pole. Colorado was 7-4-0 in October, but has struggled in November, going 3-9-1.

“We’ve got to be desperate and we’ve got to get as many points as we can because we’ve dug ourselves a little bit of a hole," O’Brien said. "With all the three-point games in the league now, and how tough the Western Conference is, we got an uphill battle, but we’ve got to stick together and believe. If we can start stringing a few together then we can climb back in this thing.”

Notes

Jarome Iginla and Alex Tanguay were recently separated in hopes of helping the Calgary offense. Iginla was paired Sunday with Curtis Glencross and Olli Jokinen; Tanguay skated with Roman Horak and Rene Bourque; and Mikael Backlund was put with Blake Comeau and Lee Stempniak. All four lines scored in a 5-2 win at Minnesota on Sunday. … Calgary D T.J. Brodie scored his first NHL goal in the game. … Miikka Kiprusoff played in his 500th career game as a Flames netminder Sunday … The Flames are 8-0 when leading after two periods. … When Colorado D Shane O’Brien scored Saturday, it was his first goal in 88 games since Nov. 13, 2010. … Oilers LW Taylor Hall left Saturday’s game with a left shoulder injury and could miss up to a month. “I thought I was going to be out a shorter period of time, but two-to-four weeks isn’t that bad,” Hall told reporters Monday. “It’s not like I am missing a huge chunk of games where it would then take me three or four games to get back into the swing of things. I want to get back into the swing of things as quickly as possible, obviously. I’ll just try to rehab it as quickly as I can.” … Edmonton ended a 17-game winless streak in Minnesota, beating the Wild 5-2 Friday. … Oiler D Ladislav Smid ended a 124-game goalless drought when he scored Saturday in Colorado. …  D Ryan Whitney returned to the Edmonton lineup Friday after missing 11 games with a knee injury. … The Wild beat Tampa Bay 3-1 Monday to finish a season-long six-game homestand 4-2. … Pierre-Marc Bouchard scored once in the win, and the Wild is 43-6-4 in the last 53 games when he scores a goal. … Minnesota D Mike Lundin, signed as a free agent by the Wild in the offseason, played his first game of the season Monday. He’d been out with a back injury. D Greg Zanon also returned after missing 16 games with a sore groin. … Minnesota has won eight times when the other team scores first, tied with Boston and Washington for most in the NHL. … The Wild honored the late Derek Boogaard before Sunday’s game. Here is the emotional video tribute. … Minnesota is 14-1-0 when allowing two goals or less, and 0-6-3 when yielding three or more. … Vancouver G Cory Schneider has won five straight starts, including two shutouts, with Roberto Luongo sidelined and was named the league’s Second Star of the Week on Monday. With Luongo’s mammoth long-term contract hanging overhead, Schneider looks more and more like he could be a No. 1 for some team. What can the Canucks get in return? … RW Mason Raymond, who suffered fractured vertebrae in last spring's Stanley Cup final, is close to returning and is expected to be eased into the lineup, rather than sent to the minors for a few games. … Vancouver D Dan Hamhuis recorded an assist Saturday and has 12 points in the last 14 games. … D Alex Edler suffered an undisclosed upper-body injury Saturday, Speculation is he’ll be out for a while.

Photos by Getty Images

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