DENVER — They’ve muddled through 60-plus games in search of a game like this one. A road trip like this one, where something gets built rather than confidence being chipped away.

A trip that started in Vegas, where the Edmonton Oilers handed the Golden Knights a 4-2 loss. Then on to Denver to slay the dragon that beat you 9-1 when last you met, grabbing a 4-3 regulation win over the Colorado Avalanche that’s going to have some staying power inside the Edmonton Oilers’ collective psyche.

“These are games that you can look back on next month and really rally behind,” said two-goal man Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. “Understand that, if we play like that we can beat anyone.”

As the bench got roomier, with neither Colton Dach or Ty Emberson coming out for Period 2 due to injuries, the sense of a team being forced to pull together grew stronger. Then goalie Connor Ingram gets clocked out of the game by Nathan MacKinnon late in the second period — a goalie interference call that earned MacKinnon five-and-a-game — and suddenly you’re in one of those tilts that you’re going to be talking about for a while.

A game that’s going to tell you a lot about yourselves. One way or another.

“It felt big too, on the bench,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “I mean, we just understand where we’re at. The time of the year, standings-wise. You’re playing a really good team, there’s lots of adversity tonight, and it would have been easy to pack it in. We did a great job just sticking to it and trusting each other.”

In a long season full of faceless, forgettable hockey games, hockey players love games like this one: A game where you come together, dig in and rip two points out of the toughest building in the National Hockey League.

A game where Tristan Jarry showed his teammates he’ll go to battle with them. Where the shot blockers rack up 23 blocks to Colorado’s eight. Where Trent Frederic went toe to toe with Nicolas Roy, before Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl provided the game-winner on a power play that just wasn’t going to be denied.

“It’s a good one. An important one,” said Zach Hyman. “It’s an important road trip against really good teams. And we’re off to a good start on it.”

“When you win games like this it builds belief in the group,” Hyman added. “The whole way through, we played well. It wasn’t just a fluky win. It was a good team win.”

For the fragile Jarry, it was an unexpected opportunity to show his teammates what he was made of.

In a week where there has been some superfluous narrative floating around the internet regarding Jarry and his teammates — overblown, yes, but out there nonetheless — Jarry came on in relief and battled right alongside everyone else.

It’s been a long, rocky road for Jarry since he was traded to Edmonton, devoid of nights where he walked out of a hockey rink feeling the way he did on Wednesday in Denver.

“Any opportunity you have to step in the net is another chance to be better,” he said. “Tonight was another opportunity, and being able to seize that is a whole different moment. It’s just (about) getting traction from that.”

His teammates won’t make a big deal about it publicly. But had it gone the other way for Jarry, this could have been a real back-breaker for the struggling ‘tendy vis a vis his tenure in this dressing room.

“It’s big. I mean, it’s important,” Hyman said. “You come into a game like that — a big game — and you’re able to shut the door and help us get a win? It’s got to feel good.

“We need him,” Hyman continued. “We need him to get back to the level that he’s capable of playing at, because he’s a difference maker.”

“He should feel very good about this,” Knoblauch agreed. “He gets in there with 30 seconds left in the second period, and he’s tested two times. Then in the third period, he made some big saves, a couple on Colorado’s power play. Yes, he should feel very good about this, and we’re going to definitely need him right away. Once, if not twice, going into this back to back (at Dallas and St. Louis).”

Knoblauch reports that it was the concussion spotter that took Ingram out of the game, not some other injury after that hellacious run in with MacKinnon. If Ingram wakes up feeling fine, it’s possible he could start Saturday in St. Louis.

But it will be Jarry’s net in Dallas Friday.

He earned that start, and a whole lot more, by holding off the mighty Avalanche.

“We’re also a very good team,” he points out. “But being able to size up to a team like that — play a team game like that — everyone did a great job, for sure.”