No surprise Blues pulling their weight
Troy Murray answers questions about what fans can expect as the Chicago Blackhawks get set to take on the St. Louis Blues in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series.
Q: How impressed are you by the resolve St. Louis has shown in this series?
A: I don't know how impressed I've been. Are they living up to the expectations of what we thought they could be and have been all season? Absolutely. I don't know if I'm surprised because this is a good hockey team. We all knew that and this is a team that is looking to make a good run into the postseason. So it's not surprising that they've been able to do what they've been able to do in this series.
Q: Blues teams of the past, though, may have folded after their Game 2 meltdown or the way they started Game 3. No?
A: Well, each season, each playoff series takes on a life of its own. They've got a different roster in some areas. They've playing with more confidence in some areas. Chicago's roster is not the same as it was before. There's so many factors.
It's amazing that everybody looks at history and says, 'This is way the things have gone in the past.' Throw all that out the window because it doesn't really matter. It doesn't apply to the teams that are playing in this series. They are different teams than they were last year.
There's a core group of guys, obviously, with St. Louis that have been there for a while. But they felt they made some significant changes to improve the makeup of their hockey team, and they feel they are another year experienced from what they've learned in the last couple of years.
I get very surprised people who dig into the numbers and say, 'This is what's happened in the past.' It really doesn't apply to the here and now of this playoff series.
Q: Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews - they've got to start scoring, yes?
A: Well, everybody's got to be better. When you are losing hockey games in whatever fashion, everybody has to contribute more. Would Kane and Toews like to have 5, 6, 7 points in this series? Yeah, they would. But it's not that easy and it's a collective group that has to find a way to win these hockey games.
Toews has had some great opportunities; Kane has been effective. … But the Blackhawks have not won three Stanley Cups in the last six years because of two players. Everybody has to contribute at a higher level and find ways to win these games that they've lost.
• 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.