Gibson makes 21 saves, Red Wings blank Avalanche in 2nd game of home-and-home

DENVER -- John Gibson made 21 saves, and the Detroit Red Wings blanked the Colorado Avalanche 2-0 at Ball Arena on Monday.

“Top to the bottom, it was a total team effort,” Gibson said. “Everybody was committed to playing defense, offense, getting pucks deep, forecheck. So I think it was probably one of the most complete games that at least I've been a part of this year.”

The shutout was Gibson’s fourth this season and the 28th of his career, tying him with Guy Hebert and Mike Karakas for the 10th most by an American goaltender in NHL history.

Lucas Raymond had a goal and an assist, Marco Kasper scored, and Dylan Larkin had two assists for the Red Wings (33-18-6), who had lost three straight (0-2-1) and are 3-2-2 in their past seven games, including a 5-0 loss to the Avalanche on Saturday in the first of the home-and-home.

“I thought it was outstanding,” Detroit coach Todd McLellan said. "We had some legs, we were connected, we made some passes, we defended well. Just about everything that could get turned upside down [from Saturday] was, and we got to give the leadership group and the players a lot of credit for responding.

“[Colorado] can gain momentum real quick. The fans can get into the game, and we took them out of it real early and actually got some of the Red Wings fans into it. There was a hell of a 'Wings' crowd here tonight, which is nice.”

Mackenzie Blackwood made 23 saves for the Avalanche (36-9-9), who are 2-4-1 in their past seven games.

“We gave up one early, which is sort of a tough start to the game,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. "So tight checking game on both sides, both teams committed to it. I just thought they did a really nice job.

“I give Detroit all the credit there. We weren't at our best, but I think they competed hard. They defended hard. We made some mistakes here and there, and we had to grind for our chances tonight big time, right? So there wasn't a lot of them. I didn't think either team had a lot of chances, but it was tough sliding out there tonight.”

Just 33 seconds into the first period, Kasper scored to make it 1-0 Detroit. Raymond took the puck down to the left dot on the 2-on-1 before passing to Kasper, who was crashing the net at the far side for the backdoor tap-in.

“Obviously, great play by Lucas finding me backdoor. I just had to put my stick down,” Kasper said. “Important to get off to a good start, obviously, especially after a couple games where we haven't been our best, and we were talking a lot about just getting off to a good start, not giving them too much respect, and I think it's a great play.”

Raymond scored into the empty net at 19:29 of the third period for the 2-0 final.

"Some nights, you just get bad bounces. Some nights, it's just power play [or] penalty kill [that] is the difference, and tonight that wasn't it,” Avalanche defenseman Devon Toews said. “It was more so execution, finishing plays, finding plays, making the right play under pressure with a team that puts you under a lot of pressure and swarms you in the corners, and we didn't do a great job of reading through that and finding the open ice.”

Toews played 20:19 of ice time after missing the past 13 games with an upper-body injury. He finished minus-1 with one shot on goal.

NOTES: The Red Wings became the first team to shut out the Avalanche since the Vancouver Canucks did so on Feb. 4, 2025. … Colorado defenseman Brent Burns tied Alex Delvecchio (1,550) for 16th place on the NHL’s all-time games played list.