Wild 1, Avalanche 0; Harding gets painful shutout; Havlat scintillating; Nolan injured

(edited at 1 a.m. because can't sleep and realized a mistake; should make for a fun 3:30 alarm)

First, the bad news. Owen Nolan took a slap shot on the hand late in tonight's game and didn't return. The Wild didn't have an update yet after the game, so stay tuned Friday.

Speaking of Friday, in the early editions, unless it was caught, you might find out that Thursday was really Friday -- or at least in my mind. I thought it was Friday all day (probably because I normally file my Sunday column on Fridays and I turned it in this afternoon) and that might have leaked into the paper. Sorry about that.

Huge win here tonight in Denver. Josh Harding, while clearly laboring after aggravating his hip injury, held on for a 29-save shutout for his fourth career shutout and first since Oct. 14, 2007. Luckily, my pregame notebook held up. I hate writing lead notes on goalies playing well because one bad start, and I look stupid. But the performance actually made the notebook better and Harding's stats more impressive.

Marty Havlat, a point a game player pretty much his entire career, had a beautiful winning goal during a sorta give-and-go with Kyle Brodziak tonight. It came with 4:49 left in the game to snap a scoreless tie. Havlat, whose got a point in 20 of his last 24 games, has 29 points in 29 games since returning from a hammy Dec. 2.

The Wild, which is tied for the league lead with 17 road regulation losses, snapped a five-game road losing streak and won for the first time on the road since Dec. 28. The Wild improved to 13-2-2 in its past 17 against Colorado, 6-0-2 in its past eight in this building and closed the season series with Colorado at 5-1. Nobody else can beat the Avs, yet the Wild do.

For a long time, the Wild couldn't beat this team (like in the 2008 playoffs!!!).

Wild's two points behind Calgary now. They're inching up the standings since every night the teams above them play a 3-point game (back to back OT/shootout losses for Calgary).

Greg Zanon was creamed from behind tonight by Darcy Tucker. Normally Tucker just goes for the knees. Zanon said he felt "good enough to finish at least," but hopes for a light practice Friday in San Jose.

"I don't think we had a ton of energy," Zanon said. "Guys did their jobs. Hards obviously played huge for us. We did what we could to help him out as much as we can. We found a way to hang in there and give ourselves a chance. A lot of it stems from Hards.

"I don't think there's anybody really healthy right now. That makes it harder, especially playing back to back , travel and stuff."

Here's a quote from Todd Richards I didn't use in the paper: "What an advantage it is for a team sitting at home waiting for a team to travel in that played the night before. We benefited from that last night with Detroit. They ran out of gas in the third. When you played the night before, ... your gas tank's a little bit on 'e.' We battled, we competed, we played extremely hard. It might be one of the times where you look back at turning points of the season, ... and this could certainly be one of those moments."

OK, that's it for me. Read the game story and game notebook for all other details, including the Wild in final talks to play an exhibition game in and against the Mikko Koivu-owned Turku Finnish Elite League next fall.