After stopping Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the final Edmonton Oilers player sent out for the shootout, Darcy Kuemper slid his goalie stick back into an imaginary sheath at his hip.

“That just kind of happened,” Kuemper said. “I didn’t think about it at all.

“Just an exciting win to get.”

Kuemper set a new regular-season career high with 49 saves, Nathan MacKinnon found the net in both regulation and the shootout and the Colorado Avalanche swept a three-game road trip with a 2-1 win over the Oilers.

MacKinnon took a penalty late in overtime and the Avalanche, finishing up a back-to-back with travel, held on. Each of the games this weekend went past regulation.

“I thought the killers did a great job,” Kuemper said. “Obviously a pretty tough situation going against those four guys in overtime.

“Allowed me to be aggressive and read the shots. I was just trying to play the same way and not change anything.”

The first goal of the game didn’t come until 5:24 into the third period. The Oilers’ Warren Foegele finally solved Kuemper with a tip of a Darnell Nurse shot.

“They were the quicker team tonight,” coach Jared Bednar said of Edmonton. “They were a little bit more competitive along the walls and came up with more pucks. They got to the puck first, won more races than we did.”

With 5:07 left in regulation, MacKinnon won a faceoff, hovered, went to the net and backhanded a shot past Oilers goaltender Mikko Koskinen.

Koskinen (33 saves) got consistent help from his goalposts in the first period. Cale Makar hit one nearly eight minutes into the game. J.T. Compher and Bowen Byram then struck iron 20 seconds apart.

Avalanche defenseman Samuel Girard (back) returned to the lineup right on schedule. He last played March 8 in New Jersey and was expected to miss four weeks. Bednar described the issue as one that had bugged Girard for some time.

Girard played 18:31 with a shot on goal Saturday.

With Girard ready to go, Erik Johnson missed his first game of the season. He was scratched alongside Kurtis MacDermid. Johnson, Colorado’s longest-tenured player, appeared in the first 71 games, registering 7 goals and 15 assists. He missed all but four games last season due to injury.

“Erik’s been dealing with some nagging stuff,” Bednar said. “For me, it was a perfect opportunity to get him not just one night off…we don’t play until Wednesday night.

“He’s played more hockey than anyone for us all year. I would like to have our whole entire group feeling as good and as rested and as healthy as they can going into the playoffs.”

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