This is my fourth season being around the Blues on a daily basis. In the first three years, I’ve heard time and time again about two memorable games in Blues’ history.

No. 1: The Monday Night Miracle in 1986. You’ll never believe this: I wanted to look up a few details about that game for this blog and discovered that the Monday Night Miracle has its own page on wikipedia.com. So instead of providing those details, I’ll just give you the link . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monday_Night_Miracle_(ice_hockey)

That game is, without question, the most talked about. But I’ll give you another one . . .

No. 2: Nov. 29, 2000 . . . the Blues overcome a 5-0 deficit with 15:09 remaining in the third period and knock off the Toronto Maple Leafs, 6-5, on a Jochen Hecht’s overtime goal. Unfortunately, that game does not have its own page on wikipedia.

Former Post-Dispatch Dave Luecking covered that game for our paper. Because Dave was flying home with the team after the game, he had written a majority of his story in the third period, as if the Blues were going to lose the game. Who wouldn’t have done that? I spoke to Dave about that game a few months ago, and he can still remember in detail trying to re-write the story and make the charter flight home. In our business, that’s as tough as it gets.

Well, I got my own dose of what Dave went through on Monday. Should we call it the “Monday Afternoon Miracle?” Of course it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the Monday Night Miracle, but in a matinee affair, the Blues rallied from deficits of 3-0 and 4-3 to win 5-4 in a  shootout.

“What a huge battle back,” Manny Legace said. “That’s a huge win.”

How did the Blues do it? They trailed 3-0 after the first period, looking as lethargic as they did in Saturday’s 5-2 loss to the New York Islanders. And then this is what happened at the start of the second period . . .

 * T.J. Oshie and Andy McDonald had an odd-man rush, and Oshie put the puck on McDonald’s stick. Vesa Toskala made a terrific save, but Brad Boyes was there for the clean-up duty. Boyes scored his third goal in three games, trimming the Blues deficit to 3-1 just 33 seconds into the period. That might have been the best sequence in the game, if the following didn’t happen . . .

* The Blues were caught in a line change and former Blue Jamal Mayers found himself on a breakaway. If Mayers scores, the Leafs go up 4-1 and the game is likely over. But out of nowhere came Oshie, diving at the last second to break up Mayers’ opportunity. Where did Oshie come from? The bench. He did a dead sprint to catch up with Mayers, one of the fastest skaters you’ll find in the league. Oshie told me after the game that he has no idea how he caught him. That would have been the best sequence in the game, if this didn’t happen . . .

* Ryan Hollweg boards Alex Pietrangelo on a vicious hit and gets hit himself with a 5-minute boarding penalty and a game misconduct. Hollweg was coming off a 2-game suspension for having three game misconducts in a 41-game stretch. He will no doubt be missing some more games for this hit. As a result of the 5-minute major, the Blues scored two power-play goals and tied the game 3-3.

* Patrik Berglund scored his first NHL goal for a 3-2 deficit. Berglund was beaming after the game. He said that someone did retrieve the puck for the first item of his souvenir collection. Not a bad first goal . . . in Toronto in a memorable, come-from-behind win.

* Keith Tkachuk scored his fourth goal of the season to tie the game. Don’t look now but Tkachuk leads the league with his four goals.

* The Blues scored two power-play goals on the 5-minute advantage, and they now have seven goals on 14 power-play chances this season. SOMEBODY PINCH ANDY MURRAY!

* The Blues didn’t quit even after Nik Hagman put Toronto ahead 4-3 with 6 minutes left in the second period. Paul Kariya pounced a loose puck in front of the Leafs’ net, backhanding a puck past Vesa Toskala. Kariya is off to a fine start with one goal and five assists in three games.

* Both teams had chances late in the third period and in overtime. Legace came up big for the Blues and Toskala came up even bigger, stopping Tkachuk with the game on the line.

* Then the game went into a shootout, a department in which the Blues were 3-5 last season. Murray told Kevin Wheeler tonight on KMOX that he decided not to watch the shootout this time . . . he turned his head. What Murray missed where a couple of nice moves by McDonald and Boyes, and a some quality goaltending by Legace to preserve the victory.

The Monday Afternoon Miracle? The name probably won’t gather any steam over the long haul, but many Blues fans will be talking about it this week. Instead of being 1-2 and people asking why the Blues haven’t been competitive, the club is 2-1 and getting set for back-to-back must-see games against Dallas Thursday and Chicago Saturday.