On way to Hall, Keith celebrates a grand night

Plus: Hawks go OT again! (And win.)

The waiting is simply excruciating.

At first you think it can’t possibly happen again ... until it does.

Every game this season the Blackhawks either had erased a third-period lead or blown one of their own, and every game had gone to overtime.

Saturday night at the United Center was no exception. And this was the most thrilling one yet.

Just when it looked like the Hawks would go to a shootout for the first time this season, Alex DeBrincat’s second goal of the game with nine seconds left in overtime gave them a 4-3 victory over the Blues.

“We’re resilient out there and we want to come out and win every game,” said DeBrincat, who has six goals this season. “It gives us some confidence to come back. We definitely would rather keep the lead we have.”

With time winding down, defenseman Erik Gustafsson fed a perfect cross-ice pass to DeBrincat, who was waiting near the crease to finish off the Blues and snap a two-game losing streak.

“It’s pretty easy when you have (Jonathan Toews and Dominik Kahun) as your linemates,” DeBrincat said. “Everyone’s making great plays. On that last play Gus made a great pass backdoor to me. Pretty easy tap in.”

It was the first time in NHL history a team has begun the season with five straight overtime games.

The OT period had a thrilla-minute feel as goalies Cam Ward and Jake Allen each came up huge before DeBrincat’s game winner.

A pre-game ceremony honoring Duncan Keith for playing his 1,000th career game pushed the start of the game back about 20 minutes but didn’t prevent the Hawks from getting off to another fast start.

For the third consecutive game the Hawks shot out to a 2-0 lead and the recentlydemoted Brandon Saad had an important hand in it.

His rush to the net midway through the period drew an interference penalty on Jay Bouwmeester. As the power play wound down Saad got off a shot that Allen was able to stop.However, the rebound landed on Anisimov’s stick and he scored his first goal of the season with 8 minutes, 9 seconds left moments after the power play ended. It was Saad’s second assist of the season.

“The league is close, every game is close,” Keith said. “Guys can put the puck in the net.

“Both teams want it bad and it’s early on. We realize how important the points are. We did a good job battling back and were fortunate to get a overtime goal.”

Kane scored a power-play goal at the 3:59 mark of the first with a highlight-reel effort. A mass of players were on the ice around the net when the puck came to Kane, who stickhandled in a semi-circle around the front of the net until he found an opening and drilled it in for his fifth tally of the season.

The Blues were able to tie it with 18:16 left in the third on a bad giveaway by Ward. He stopped the puck behind his net but his clearing pass went through Brandon Manning’s legs to David Perron, who was able to backhand it into the empty net before Ward could fully recover.

Brayden Schenn’s powerplay goal with 15:13 left in the third — his second goal of the game — gave the Blues the lead.

But DeBrincat’s first goal it up again with 6:56 remaining and then the wait was on.

Would the Blackhawks go to overtime? Again?

Turns out they would. And it would be worth the wait.