For Murray, experience an intriguing factor in series
For an insider's perspective of the Chicago Blackhawks and their first-round NHL playoff series with Calgary, the Daily Herald talked with Troy Murray, the former Selke Award winner who spent 12 of his 15-year NHL career with the Blackhawks. Murray is the team's color analyst for its radio broadcasts on WGN 720-AM.
Q: How much will the lack of playoff experience hurt the Hawks?
Murray: That's to be determined. You can have a young group of guys like this and go out there and just play hard and use their enthusiasm to their advantage. But that's the million dollar question: is Calgary's experience more than the Hawks' youth can handle? To me, that's the most intriguing part of this matchup.
Q: That's where the Joel Quenneville factor comes into play, right?
Murray: I agree. He's handled tough situations. He's been in the playoffs before. He's handled experienced guys, he's handled young guys. I think he's done an incredible job.
This year has had its peaks and valleys, but if you were around this group all the time, you saw that Joel kind of let them feel out this whole thing. He didn't press the panic button and start yelling and screaming and all that.
He wanted these young guys to face the adversity and figure it out on their own.
Q: And did they?
Murray: They did. There was a time when the goaltending kind of tailed off - it had been great between Nikolai Khabibulin and Cristobal Huet all season long - and all of a sudden it wasn't there. You could almost sit there and see if there would be any finger pointing, but there was none of that, and that's a great compliment to Joel and the guys inside the room.
Even the young players didn't panic. They came back and won a lot of close games down the stretch, and I think they benefitted from that.
Columbus coach Ken Hitchcock came up with an interesting thought. He said when Chicago's skill learns how to check, it's a dangerous combination. That's what this team has learned to do.
Q: Will their play down the stretch translate into playoff success?
Murray: We'll find out soon how quickly will they understand that there's another level to be had. They may come out and automatically accept that challenge or they may come out and get caught off-guard a little bit.
I don't think Calgary is going to get intimidated by coming into this loud building because they've been there, been in that atmosphere.
A big factor will be how the Blackhawks adjust to their emotions here. You can't get too caught up in it. There's where the experience and inexperience factor may come into play early in this series. It may not be a factor at all - but it may be a real big factor.
Troy Murray is in his sixth season as color analyst for Blackhawks radio broadcasts, working with play-by-play announcer John Wiedeman on WGN 720-AM.