Realistically, this will be a long, hard-fought series

Q. What are your thoughts heading into Friday's game?

A. This is a good opportunity for the Blackhawks to respond in the right way. A lot of things have gone right for the Blackhawks in their series against the Sharks and early on in this series too.

It's a little bit of adversity but nobody thought they were going to sweep the Flyers. You might have gotten your hopes up after winning the first two games in Chicago, but realistically, this is a long, hard-fought series.

If you look what happened last year; Pittsburgh was the Stanley Cup champion and no one knows or cares how they got there.

Q. How much of a lift was it that Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews finally hit the scoresheet in Game 3?

A. Those guys, they like to contribute offensively. For Patrick to score a big goal in that game I think it's going to give him a bit more confidence. Not that they've played poorly, but they expect to chip in offensively, so it's been a bit of a struggle.

If you look at the two top lines - the Richards line and the Toews line - they've been fairly quiet in this series because they have been the focus of the shutdown players.

Q. The Blackhawks special teams units have struggled in this series, and that's not a good sign, is it?

A. Philadelphia is obviously winning the special teams battles. When the games are so close and these two teams are so evenly matched, when you have that opportunity with the man advantage, you'd certainly like to make that count. Those power play goals are huge, and Wednesday night's were a big difference in the game. They were able to capitalize on the PP and the Blackhawks were not.

I know that the focus of the Hawks' coaching staff and players is to get better on the special teams when they have that opportunity.

You can hear Troy Murray's analysis on Blackhawks radio broadcasts on WGN AM-720