Avalanche forward Matt Duchene will miss 3-4 weeks with a right ankle injury, but the injury won’t require surgery, Colorado coach Joe Sacco said Thursday.

Duchene, 21, was hurt late in Colorado’s 7-1 win over Minnesota on Tuesday.

“I’m gonna work as hard as I possibly can to be back in an Avs jersey before the season is over,” Duchene said on Twitter. “It kills me to be out again.”

It will be Duchene’s second prolonged stint missing games because of an injury this season. He missed seven weeks after suffering a left knee injury on Dec. 29.

“It’s definitely tough, he struggled getting back with that knee injury, and for him to be out for a couple more weeks, it’s tough,” Avs forward Peter Mueller said.

“He’s a kid who wants to play so bad and enjoys the game. It’s tough to see, but for us, we need to keep going. We’ve dealt with injuries in the past, it just means we have to step up a little more and find some more offense without him in the lineup.”

Sacco also talked about the Avs’ having to deal with injuries at this point in the season.

“We’ve done a good job of dealing with injuries. We haven’t had that many, knock on wood, and not as many we’ve had the last couple of years,” Sacco said.

“(Duchene) missed a significant amount of time before that with a knee injury and we did OK. It’s just an opportunity for other people to step in and have a little bit more of a role than they previously had, use them in more minutes and different situations.”

Josh Cooper of The Tennessean contributed to this report.