Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

Patrick Kane.

PHILADELPHIA — We have wondered for a while now, when the Chicago Blackhawks we watched throughout the first three playoff rounds would show up in this Stanley Cup final.

The answer?

When the Philadelphia Flyers let them, apparently.

Because these Blackhawks, a petulant young group that has tasted much success in the past two seasons, don’t look particularly interested in going out and grabbing their first Stanley Cup since 1961. They’re playing like a group that expects Philly to hand it over.

You can almost hear them saying, "Don’t you know who we are?"

"Obviously we haven’t played the way we wanted to (in this series)," said defenceman Brent Sopel after a 5-3, Game 4 loss that evened this series at two games apiece. "But give them credit. They’re coming hard on the forecheck. We’ve got to stop turning the puck over."

They’ve got to stop playing with the hand brake on. They’re asking, not telling — and one does not play discreetly at this time of year and expect results. Not when you’re up against a buzz saw like this Philadelphia club.

"We all can pick up our play and our desperation level," said defenceman Duncan Keith. "This is it. It’s a best-of-three now, there’s nothing to save it for. There’s nothing to conserve your energy for. It’s full-out every shift. And that’s the way it should be."

Juvenile penalties in the offensive zone. Heinous giveaways around their own net. A refusal — or perhaps inability — to get through the Flyers in the neutral zone, and as such, lousy execution when they finally enter the offensive zone.

Either Chicago isn’t getting it done, or Philadelphia is simply a better team. Right now, we’re not sure which to believe.

"We’ve got ourselves to blame and that’s it," said captain Jonathan Toews, who is four games into his first Cup final and has one lonely assist.

"We can’t whack back," he said, in direct reference to Patrick Sharp’s slashing minor on Mike Richards, whose initial whack had gone undetected by the zebras. "Retaliation penalties are definitely what stand out, especially to the officials. We have to try our best to get under their skin and make sure they’re whacking us back instead of us taking stupid penalties."

Somebody better inform Toews and the boys that the Flyers haven’t read as many of the Chicago press clippings as the Blackhawks have — that Philly is not content to be the Blackhawks’ Washington Generals.

You know that Toews will be delivering that message Saturday in Chitown, because the compete level this Blackhawks team has exhibited thus far is simply not as high as what the Flyers are throwing down.

"At this stage, it's whatever it takes to win," said Flyers defenceman Chris Pronger, who is positioning himself for the Conn Smythe Trophy no matter who wins this series. "We didn't allow too many high quality scoring chances. We needed to defend the slot and the front of our net and we did a good job of that."

Pronger went plus-4, running his series-best number to plus-7. Meanwhile, it was another pointless night for Toews, and his linemate Patrick Kane was minus-4.

You’ve heard of Malcolm in the Middle? Well, how about Patrick on the Perimeter?

It seems Kane may have done his best bit of playing in traffic earlier in the season when he and John Madden were photographed shirtless with a few young lasses in the back of a Vancouver limo. He fought harder for a few cents against the cabbie in Buffalo than he’s fighting here.

"You need to get your power play going and your top couple of lines," said Toews, a youngster at age 22 who has reached a crucial juncture in his captaincy. "Yeah, it’s frustrating, but what are we going to do? You’re not going to sit there and cry about it. You keep going out there the next shift and you try.

"You do a lot of good things out there but it doesn’t mean nothing if you don’t produce, if you don’t score. We know that."

Flyers captain Mike Richards, meanwhile, opened the scoring with his first goal of the series, then went out and personified his team’s theme word: "Relentless."

"When you see a captain play like that. It's easy for the other guys to elevate their game," said Simon Gagne.

Et tu, Jonathan?