Blackhawks finding ways to fight fatigue
Troy Murray answers questions from John Dietz about what fans can expect as the Chicago Blackhawks get set to take on the St. Louis Blues in Game 6 of their first-round playoff series.
Q: All of the reporters are exhausted from just traveling during this series, and we're not doing 1/100th of what the players are doing on the ice. How are the Blackhawks able to find the strength to stay alive despite their obvious fatigue?
A: What you have with these Blackhawks players is a very unique group of guys that are wired in the right way that mentally they can overcome the pain they have to endure to be a championship team. …
I don't think I've ever seen anybody in this core group compare to something that I played with. … You could probably look at the old Edmonton Oilers and say that they had that drive inside them. They had that mental toughness that could just overcome the mental and physical fatigue.
For some reason it looked like in (Game 5 on Thursday) that St. Louis was the fresher team and they had more energy and this was their night.
Just for the Blackhawks to have that will to say 'we're going to find a way to do this' is something that has been so impressive. Most teams want to find those players, but they are very few and far between. The Blackhawks have a very special group of those guys inside the room, and it filters to the rest of the locker room as far as their calmness and their demeanor. …
Their ability to mentally block out the physical pain of what happens in an NHL Stanley Cup run is phenomenal.
Q: What are your thoughts on what Patrick Kane did to win Game 5 and keep the Blackhawks' season alive?
A: That's what makes him so special. He has that ability at any given time to make the difference in a hockey game. It's something that very few people have ever been able to have in that fashion.
If you look at all the top players, the great names in the game, they had the ability to make the difference when they had the puck on their stick.
St. Louis had done a tremendous job of keeping Kane at bay, but when he has the one opportunity, he's that guy that relishes that moment, and more often than not takes advantage of it.
Q: The Hawks are trying to say all the pressure is on the Blues for Game 6 on Saturday. What do you think about that?
A: This series has been unbelievably close. One bounce, one play has made the difference in all the games to this point. It's been tremendous hockey.
For one of these two teams to be out in the first round of the playoffs is disappointing. But it's the reality of the way the game is structured now in the NHL. The parity is there.
But who's got more pressure on them to succeed? I don't know.
It's a tossup. You could say there's pressure on St. Louis to find a way to calm the demons of the things that have happened in the past. And there's pressure on the Blackhawks not to be a team that gets knocked out in the first round defending the Stanley Cup.
• Troy Murray is in his 16th year as a member of the Blackhawks broadcast team and his ninth as the color analyst for the team's radio broadcasts. The Selke Award winner was a five-time 20-goal scorer who played 15 years in the NHL. Follow him on Twitter@muzz19.