DETROIT — With 1:32 remaining in overtime, Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski came out of a collision along the end boards with a left skate that was barely hanging on his foot. His laces had been sliced by another player’s skate blade.

At that point, the Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings were tied, and it’s not a reach to say Columbus’ season was on the line.

But Werenski’s night wasn’t finished.

Adam Fantilli’s goal with 16.2 seconds remaining forced overtime, and set the stage for one of the Blue Jackets’ most memorable regular-season wins, not to mention a truly bizarre scenario involving Werenski that sounds more like an anxiety dream than an NHL highlight.

Werenski, who scored his 22nd goal of the season in the second period, scored the shootout winner in the fifth round to send the Blue Jackets to a 4-3 win over the Red Wings before 17,687 in Little Caesars Arena.

“You’ve got to love our effort,” Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness said. “We’re down 3-2 in the last five minutes, man. We didn’t give up, and we kept pushing. So there’s a lot of fight left in this group.”

The Blue Jackets didn’t save their season, necessarily. The next week will decide that. But they certainly kept their season alive, especially since two of the other clubs they’re battling with for a playoff spot — Ottawa and Philadelphia — also won Tuesday.

Just getting a win after a 1-6-1 slide, including six straight losses, was monumental. To win as they did Tuesday could provide a boost for the final four games of the season, continuing Thursday vs. Buffalo.

“It’s never over till it’s over,” said Blue Jackets center Charlie Coyle, who kept the game alive with a shootout goal in the third round. “We didn’t sit back. We didn’t. We just kept coming.

“It didn’t seem like there was any panic (on Fantilli’s) goal. It was just, ‘Get the job done and make a good play.’”

After two icings by the Red Wings, Blue Jackets center Sean Monahan won a faceoff in the Detroit zone with 21 seconds remaining. Kirill Marchenko played it back to Werenski, who skated toward the slot and teed up Fantilli for a shot to his right.

Fantilli’s one-timer glanced off the shoulder of Red Wings goaltender John Gibson and shot into the net, his 23rd goal of the season.

“I knew it got over quick enough (from Werenski), so I knew I was going to have a (shot) late,” Fantilli said.

“That was such a great team win. It was awesome.”

Fantilli said Werenski called him over between overtime and the shootout to show him his damaged skate. Those two, along with half the Blue Jackets’ bench, they said, were shocked when Werenski’s name was called.

But some work had been done in the meantime.

Between the end of the overtime and the start of the shootout, Blue Jackets equipment manager Paul DeFazio wrapped Werenski’s boot with heavy packing tape, the best he could do with not enough time to re-lace his boot.

Kent Johnson, Marchenko, Coyle and Fantilli had already gone in the shootout when Werenski’s name was shouted down the bench by assistant coach Mike Haviland.

“I couldn’t really skate, so when they called me, I was like, ‘Are you guys sure? I’m kind of on one leg here,’” Werenski said. “Like, my foot was in the skate, but it was pretty wobbly.

“It probably made me feel more calm, to be honest, because I was like, ‘You know what, nothing to lose, really. Just get on there and fire it. I was calm, and I felt good about it, so, cool moment for sure.”

Werenski’s wrist shot sailed past Gibson on his stick side, and the Blue Jackets raced off the bench to meet Werenski in the neutral zone in celebration. Remarkably, it’s the first penalty shot score of Werenski’s career on only his fourth attempt.

“It’s huge,” Werenski said. “We can definitely build on this. I feel like we put everything into it, all of our energy, and guys played extremely hard for 65 full minutes. And we’re going to build on it.

“We going to keep going, we’re gonna fight to the end. We’ll see what happens. Yeah, just an awesome performance with a lot of guys playing their games. Everybody was bought in.”

Two weeks ago, the Blue Jackets were as high as fifth in the Eastern Conference and second in the Metro Division. They were riding high under Bowness and preparing for a playoff berth.

And then it all went away, both the wins and all of their confidence, it seemed. But Tuesday night was a major step in the right direction.

Bowness put his forward lines in a blender — maybe the garbage disposal is a better metaphor — and put everybody forward in a new situation. It was done as much to help them defend as to give them all a different look.

For a night, it did the trick. The Blue Jackets, who had only 26 shots on goal combined in their previous two games, had that total by early in the third period Tuesday. They finished with 35 shots on goal.

Danton Heinen’s goal only 2:06 into the game was the first by a Blue Jackets forward in 139:59, just one second short of seven periods.

It wasn’t perfect. There were still plenty of puck struggles, and Marchenko looks as if he’s completely short-circuited under the pressure of a playoff race.

The ending of Tuesday’s game was storybook, though.

The Blue Jackets have suffered so many losses this season where they let late leads slip away, including one in Detroit just before Thanksgiving. But on this night, when they faced an almost must-win situation, they pulled off a massive comeback under major pressure.

“Hopefully there weren’t too many heart attacks out there tonight,” Coyle said, with a wide grin.