DENVER — Incase being the best comeback team in 2023-24 wasn’t enough, the Avalanche decided a nationally televised matinee Sunday game against Sidney Crosby and the Penguins was the perfect setting to erase a four-goal deficit and come away victorious.

Colorado found itself down by four with under four minutes remaining in the second period but crawled all the way back to tie the game with 4:38 remaining in regulation. And just 54 seconds into overtime, Jonathan Drouin put a bow on his two-goal, three-point performance to give the Avs a 5-4 victory at Ball Arena.

It’s the Avalanche’s ninth straight victory and only the third time in franchise history that they’ve successfully erased a four-goal deficit and won. They hadn’t accomplished the feat since 2007.

“They believed right to the end that we could come back and win that game,” Jared Bednar said following Colorado’s league-leading 25th comeback victory. “You can tell by the chatter in the locker room after one, after two, that they weren’t going to give up on it.”

Sean Walker, Yakov Trenin and Nathan MacKinnon had the other three goals for the Avs, who improved to a whopping 28-6-0 at home. They’ve won 18 of their last 20 games in Denver, where they’ll play seven of their last 11 to close out the regular season.

Colorado scored twice in the final few minutes of the second period to pull within two goals. But with the home point streak on the line, MacKinnon, who didn’t have a point through 40 minutes, was reunited with Mikko Rantanen and Drouin. MacKinnon was being massively outplayed by Crosby, who had four points when Pittsburgh led 4-0.

But the Avs’ top trio did what it needed to do.

First, MacKinnon sent a cross-ice pass to Drouin for a one-timer goal early in the third to pull Colorado within one, increasing his home point streak to 34 games. And later in the frame, Drouin returned the favor with the exact same play — sending the puck circle to circle through traffic to set up MacKinnon for a one-timer and his 44th of the season. The duo practices that play every chance they get. It’s a back-and-forth that dates back to their teenage years with the Halifax Mooseheads and it gave the Avalanche the two goals needed in the third to will this one to overtime.

“Just come to one of our practices. They’re out early, they’re out late. They’re always working on those little touches and shots,” Bednar said. “It’s funny because we had trouble going through the seam too many times in the first period and yet we get two seam goals in the third.”

Colorado began to mount its comeback thanks to a goal from Walker just 25 seconds after Pens defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph made it 4-0. Walker wired it through traffic from the blue line and beat goalie Alex Nedeljkovic to make it 4-1. Walker came out strong on his next shift and nearly made it a two-goal game himself. But his shot from the slot rang off the crossbar, eventually setting up Trenin’s first in an Avalanche uniform after he redirected an attempt from linemate Brandon Duhaime.

The new guys were very much a catalyst for starting the comeback. And it allowed the big guns to take control in the third period and complete the comeback.

“You can’t win against really good teams consistently if you don’t have that depth,” Bednar said. “I’m looking at the teams you gotta beat out west and they all have depth.”

Alexandar Georgiev improved his personal winning streak to six games after making 30 saves against Pittsburgh. Georgiev, who leads the league with 37 wins, was visibly upset following the goal from Joseph but was able to shut things down the rest of the way.

At times, Colorado needed its netminder to keep the game within reach. And when the Avs started scoring, it was up to Georgiev to not allow the Penguins to halt the comeback. Georgiev stopped all seven shots he faced in the third.