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This pain, this heartache, this stunned and numbed feeling is only because you pour your everything into your St. Louis Blues. And you dutifully and passionately poured your everything — and then two more periods worth of your everything — into Sunday’s Game 7.

Now, if you didn’t truly care, you would’ve easily avoided these raw emotions. But if you didn’t truly care, you wouldn’t have experienced the opposite raw emotions, in 2019, when the Blues won a Game 7 in double overtime. That’s the give-and-take of investing your heart. Investing. That’s the word coach Jim Montgomery used in his pregame speech, aired during the FanDuel ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Network broadcast: “Keep investing in the series. We’ve been the more-physical team. … Keep creating chaos.â€�

And they did … until they didn’t. They did, until Winnipeg pulled its goalie with 1:56 left, down 3-1. The Jets scored … and with 2.2 seconds left, scored again.

The Blues blew it.

Two point two seconds.

How fast is that? It took you that long to read this sentence.

Up 3-2 with 2.2 seconds left. Incredible. Impossible. And look, I want to get into the analysis of Game 7 — why, exactly, did the Blues fall 4-3 in double-overtime to the Winnipeg Jets — but right now, minutes after it ended, I can only think of emotions.

Those of Montgomery, who resuscitated the season, reinvigorated the franchise and then, in this first-round series, recharged his team after losing the first two games … only for Montgomery to go out the same way he did as the Dallas coach in 2019, when the Blues' Patty Maroon scored and ended his season, that time in the second round of the postseason

Those of indefatigable defensemen Colton Parayko and Cam Fowler, who each skated for 40-plus minutes in Game 7.

Those of Jordan Binnington, who got the loss but wasn’t the reason the Blues lost. He made 43 saves on the night. The four he allowed were all perfectly tipped or deflected. And he made a few particular saves that were, quite simply, improbable.

Those of the fans. The emotions of all of St. Louis. Just 2.2 seconds from snatching the series from Winnipeg, the President’s Trophy winners. Just 2.2 seconds from continuing this fairy tale — eight points out of the playoffs by the early-February break, followed by a relentless run and Robert Thomas playing hockey like he was an Adam Oates-Brett Hull hybrid. Just 2.2 seconds from leveling up. 

Blues fans have experienced a spectrum of pain over the years and decades. Great teams knocked out too soon. A season-swaying injury to, say, Grant Fuhr or Binnington. And, of course, the Yzerman goal. But this one is its own unique pain. This was the hottest team in hockey, knocking around Winnipeg for three victories in six games and thinking … Cup.

And then, like a puck to the cup, pain.

With just 2.2 seconds left.

This is the Blues’ version of Mizzou fans’ 4.8 seconds. In 1995, the Tigers were 4.8 ticks from the Sweet Sixteen, but Tyus Edney of No. 1-seeded UCLA dribbled the length of the court and made a buzzer-beating, game-winning layup. UCLA went on to win the national title.

This is the Blues’ version of the 90 seconds left in the St. Louis Rams’ Super Bowl against the Patriots. St. Louis tied the game, but young quarterback Tom Brady marched his team down field and Adam Vinatieri kicked a field goal to win Super Bowl XXXVI — the first in Patriots history.

This is the Blues’ version of … well, not Don Denkinger, because the Cardinals were in the World Series at that point (while this was the Blues’ first round), but still, this was a sudden pain a lot like that moment. You’ve got the victory. You can taste the victory. And something inexplicable happens to reroute history and make your heart drop. From a baseball standpoint, maybe it was pain like when the Dodgers’ Chris Taylor hit a tied-game walk-off homer in the wild card game to beat the 2021 Cards? No, this is worse. I mean, the Blues were up two with 1:56 left!

So how did they lose it?

Consider they only had four shots in the third period. And only four shots in the first overtime. And only five shots in the second overtime.

Consider the Blues were routinely vulnerable in six-on-five situations this year. St. Louis allowed 11 goals in that scenario this season. And then two on Sunday.

Consider that it was Winnipeg creating the chaos for much of the overtime periods. Yes, the Blues had a couple amazing chances — Nathan Walker and Parayko in the slot — but Winnipeg tilted the ice, its home ice, and finally got one past Binner. Sure enough, from the stick of captain Adam Lowry, whose dad, Dave, played from 1988-93 with the Blues … and was part of the epic 1990-91 Blues who had 105 points, but lost in the second round to the North Stars.

Now, Dave Lowry’s kid gets to face the Dallas Stars in the second round.

Montgomery? He doesn’t get to face his old team. Alas, his postseason ended in the same fashion it did in 2019.

And so, for the Blues fans who were dreaming that 2025 could be a redux of 2019, this was their nightmare.