Jean-Sebastien Giguere still has some saves left in his 36-year-old bones, after all, which he showed Thursday night in the Avalanche's 3-2 overtime win in Detroit.
One day after the Avalanche acquired goalie Reto Berra from Calgary in exchange for a second-round draft pick, coach Patrick Roy elected to start Giguere rather than Semyon Varlamov, who will be in net for Saturday's matinee showdown with Central Division-leading St. Louis at the Pepsi Center.
Giguere, who allowed five goals on 27 shots Feb. 26 in the Avalanche's come-from-ahead 6-4 loss to Los Angeles, came through against the Red Wings with 35 saves, 12 in the third period when Colorado erased a 2-1 deficit on a goal by PA Parenteau at 5:49.
Defenseman Andre Benoit secured the win with 31.4 seconds remaining in overtime. Nathan MacKinnon slid a perfect diagonal cross-ice pass to Benoit in the left circle for a shot that beat goalie Jimmy Howard.
Giguere is in the final year of his contract, but he didn't play like he expects to be put out to pasture just yet.
"I said, 'You're allowed to change our plans,' " Roy said he told Giguere. "Reto Berra is here for the future. If Jiggy plays like he did tonight, it certainly helped his cause, for sure."
Giguere improved his record to 10-5-0. He has a 2.57 goals-against average and .915 save percentage.
The Avalanche (41-17-5, 87 points) swept the two-game road trip, extended its winning streak to four games and kept pace with first-place St. Louis (42-14-6, 90 points) and second-place Chicago (37-13-14, 88 points); the Blues and Blackhawks also won Thursday.
Avalanche players have been saying in recent day they believe it's possible to overtake the Blues and Blackhawks, which would have seemed completely ludicrous at the start of the season.
"If they want to win the division, I totally understand that," Roy told reporters. "On my side, we're just going to remain even keel. We're certainly not going to put pressure on ourselves. Nobody expected us to be where we are right now. The next three games will tell a lot."
Make that the next four games. The Avalanche faces St. Louis, Winnipeg, Chicago and Anaheim on a four-game homestand.
"It will be a good test for our team, but so far our guys are finding a way to respond really well to those challenges," Roy said. "I think we're starting to earn some respect from the other teams. I'm not saying the other teams do not respect us. I'm sure they are, but at the same time they probably didn't see us coming like this."
Who did?
The Avalanche spoiled a festive night at Joe Louis Arena, where the Red Wings retired former star defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom's No. 5 jersey in a pregame ceremony.
"They wanted to win this game for Lidstrom and they did a lot of good things out there," Roy said. "We found a way to win this hockey game. We stuck to it and gave ourselves a chance to win it."
The Red Wings took a 1-0 lead at 12:33 of the first period on a goal by Niklas Kronwall, who beat Giguere to the short side with a backhanded shot while in the lower portion of the right faceoff circle.
Matt Duchene scored his 20th goal of the season to tie matters at 10:11 of the second period after a shot by Erik Johnson hit a Detroit player and caromed off the end boards. Duchene barely got his stick on the puck and it bounced off Red Wings forward Johan Franzen's skate into the net.
Tomas Jurco's power-play goal at 12:10 put the Red Wings in front again, but Duchene fed Parenteau, whose no-look shot from just outside the crease beat Howard to the short side to tie the game in the third.
"Listen, we're not going to change anything," Roy said of expectations. "We're going to keep thinking one day at a time, one game at a time. These are important wins. At the end, you add every one of them and it's been impressive the way we've been playing on the road. Winning like this is a huge turnaround for our team compared to last year."
The Avalanche has gone 20-9-2 on the road and 21-8-3 at home.
*****
MacKinnon logged the most ice time (20:07) of the Avalanche's forwards. His assist on Benoit's winning goal stretched his point-scoring streak to 13 games, breaking Wayne Gretzky's NHL record for an 18-year-old. He has five goals and 13 assists in the streak.
"The record's pretty cool," said MacKinnon, who leads all rookies in scoring with 22 goals and 51 points in 63 games. "I want to be as consistent as possible."
Johnson played 25 minutes, had two assists, blocked three shots and was plus-3 ... Defense partner Jan Hejda played 26 minutes ... Duchene had a goal and an assist, five shots and was plus-2 ... Ryan O'Reilly had two assists and was plus-3 ... Marc-Andre Cliche won six of seven faceoffs ... The Red Wings outshot the Avalanche 37-25.