The Blues outworked the Blackhawks for more than 60 minutes Saturday night. They had at least a dozen glorious scoring chances.

They had one obvious goal disallowed, due to an allegedly inconclusive replay review.  Blackhawks goaltender Cristobal Huet reached deep into his net to snag an Alex Steen shot.

The Blues misfired on countless other chances — hitting posts, firing high or wide and whiffing on bouncing pucks in front of empty nets.

So they lost 2-1, in overtime, when Chicago winger Martin Havlat banked a wraparound shot off Manny Legace’s skate and into the net.

“We were the better team tonight,” a somber Legace said after the game. “We deserved to win that game. If it wasn’t for Huet, it would have been 6- or 7-1. He played just unbelievable.”

A reporter told him than enhanced replays clearly showed Steen’s shot crossing the goal line, but the Blues didn’t get the call.

“That’s the way our luck has been all year. There’s 2-1, game over.”

Hockey Guy suggested that this loss summed up the Blues’ season to date.

“Yep,” Legace said. “We hit two goal posts, a crossbar, missed about three open nets, he made some unbelievable saves, they get a wraparound goal that goes off my skate into the net . . . that’s the way the cookie is crumbling this year. But we still have to battle through it.”

Blues winger David Backes was the only Note to break through. He, too, saw this loss as symbolic of the whole campaign.

“It’s a déjà vu moment again,” he said. “It’s a tie game, third period, who’s going to win it? Like I’ve said it many times, it’s unfortunate we’ve been coming out on the wrong side of one-goal games a lot. If we bear down and get that one-goal lead, two-goal lead, our record would be drastically different.”

Hockey Guy asked Andy Murray if his team deserved better.

“That’s a difficult question,” he said. “I usually say you get what you deserve. That didn’t work tonight, necessarily. Their goalie played well. They got the overtime goal. We had them on the ropes in the second period.

“I was real pleased with our guys in the third, too, because a lot of cases, teams come out when they’ve had a whole bunch of chances like that and they haven’t capitalized and it comes back to haunt them in the third period. But I thought our guys came out real hard in the third period, created a lot of chances . . . .

“Solid effort. Disappointing. We talked to our players after the game about the fact that it’s the way we played that’s important. There is a certain standard that we should expected to play at and we played and we played that standard. Most nights, you get your full two points. Tonight we played the standard but we didn’t get our two points.”

One of the many things Murray liked about this effort was Jay McKee’s fight. The veteran handled himself well:

Murray praised Dan Hinote, calling his performance the best he’s seen from him since taking this coaching job, and Trent Whitfield, who did a terrific job on faceoffs. With Keith Tkachuk hoping to return to the lineup Monday, Murray wondered aloud: “Who do I take out?”

TALKING HOCKEY

Jeff Vernetti and I had a great time talking hockey with Mike Zuke and Rick Zombo at Dickey’s in Valley Park last Monday, on the “The Sports Edge” (noon to 2 p.m., Monday-Friday on KFNS and KFNS.com). Go here for the audio clips from our roundtable chat.

AROUND THE RINKS: Martin Gerber is down in the AHL on a two-week conditioning stint, the odd man out in Ottawa’s three-man goaltender rotation. If he can’t get back into the Senators mix – or if no other NHL teams wants him – he could return to Europe. He is in the final year of a contract paying him $3.7 million this season. The Swiss national team would love to get him for the World Championships . . . The Devils are paying Old Friend Brendan Shanahan just $400,000 to play the second half of the season . . . Blues fans will get another look at Steve Wagner, the latest call-up from the Rivermen . . . Cam Paddock scored just one point in his first 14 games back with Peoria, so we may not see him for a while.