Down 5-0, Blues Rally To Win

The St. Louis Blues knew their comeback was something special.

The Blues rallied from a five-goal third-period deficit and beat Curtis Joseph and the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-5 when Jochen Hecht scored 18 seconds into overtime.

"It's the biggest comeback of my hockey career, and it's not likely to ever happen again," said Pavol Demitra, who assisted on the Blues' last three goals. "It's amazing. I never thought that from a 5-0 deficit that we would have a chance to win the game, but we have great team, we work hard, and we score a lot of goals."

Alexander Khavanov scored twice for the Blues, including the game-tying goal with less than 30 seconds remaining in regulation.

"We started to get lucky bounces and it snowballed," St. Louis captain Chris Pronger said.

Pronger, Al MacInnis and Michal Handzus also had third-period goals against Joseph, who allowed six goals in less than 16 minutes.

Hecht, standing alone in front of the net, banged in Demitra's behind-the-net pass just 18 seconds into the extra session.

"It was one of the strangest games I've ever been a part of. It was unbelievable," Joseph said. "It's very disappointing as a Leaf player, and as a Leaf fan, to be part of such a game."

St. Louis goalie Roman Turek, who entered with a 1.83 goals against average, was replaced by Brent Johnson after allowing five goals on 23 shots. Johnson faced just two shots the rest of the way.

"Close to 20,000 people paid to watch hockey, and I'm a professional, so you play 60 minutes," Khavanov said.

The loss spoiled a great night for Toronto's Tie Domi, who had three points for the first time in his career.

"We learned a lesson," Domi said. "It was the worst period of the year."

Domi, in his 13th season, scored twice and added an assist. His six goals are one more than Toronto captain Mats Sundin, who scored for the first time in 13 games.

Garry Valk and Dave Manson also scored for Toronto.

Blues' rookie Reed Low, who has a league-leading 14 fighting penalties, fought Domi in the second period. Low landed more punches, but neither fell to the ice.

Valk skated in front of a crowded net, and scored off his own rebound at 8:38 of the first. Domi assisted on the goal.

Domi scored his first goal after collecting a rebound and as he fell to the ice flicked the puck past Turek at 3:18 of the first.

Sundin skated behind the net and shot the puck off a defenseman's stick, which then deflected off the Turek's back and in at 12:04 of the second.

Manson's shot from the point beat Turek at 14:15 of the second.

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