The Blackhawks have the Canucks wondering if they have what it takes to win a championship.
CHICAGO -- You can never be certain that a team like the Vancouver Canucks can win a championship. Not without a CAT scan and a gypsy, because so much of the winning formula lies between the ears.
Check off the boxes of what is required to become a Stanley Cup winner: Skill, speed, size, goaltending, depth, coaching ... But the last element -- mental approach -- cannot be found at the draft, or at the trade deadline.
It is a championship mindset. Knowing how to win can never be overrated.
Ex-Canuck Ryan Johnson was talking about his new dressing room in Chicago, and how -- even though he wasn't there a year ago -- last year's Stanley Cup march is paying dividends to every single Blackhawks player this spring.
"Chris Campoli commented when he came here (from the Ottawa Senators), that he's never been around a group like this that goes into a game with that assuredness of, whatever happens we're still going to find a way, get a win," Johnson said. "It's that calm or confidence you can't create, or you can't build. It's either there or it isn't."
Did you hear that, Canucks fan? "It's either there, or it isn't."
The Canucks, to a man, will tell you they have the same thing.
"Everyone has got to win their first Cup some time," points out Henrik Sedin. "You don't have to have guys who have won before to win it, as Chicago showed last year."
The only difference is, Henrik allows, "When you've done it before you don't have the doubters around you. The people looking at you like you can't win."
They'll look at you that way, Henrik, until you actually carry that Cup. Because winning justifies everything, and not winning means you've got to do something differently. Period.
"They're on the other end of that from us," Blackhawks winger Tory Brouwer said of the Canucks. "We have the mentality that we know that we can win, and we've had success against these guys.
"We're in that group, I guess you could say, where people know that we've won," continued Brouwer, a North Delta boy who knows well what the Canucks are going through back home. "People think we can win again, but there's not that added pressure on us. Where Vancouver, they've had some real good teams -- especially in the last couple of years -- and they feel that this is the year they're going to win the Stanley Cup.
"All the analysts, the bookies, have picked the Canucks, That's the sure bet. With that pressure, with all those expectations, you want to live up to them," he said. "I know the city puts a lot of pressure on them.
"Being from Vancouver, knowing how my friends react to the big games we play against them, there's a lot they're dealing with."
From top to bottom inside this Canucks organization, you can see the wheels turning. Tennis balls on the ice to start practice. A shootout drill to finish off, even though there are no more shootouts left until next October. Declaring Roberto Luongo as your Game 6 starter, just minutes after Game 5.
The Blackhawks may be down 3-2 in this series, but they have the Canucks thinking. There is no denying that.
"I'm sure they're thinking," said Patrick Kane. "We feel pretty confident in here. I'm sure being down 3-0, they didn't expect us to be in this position. I'm sure they're going to be thinking. For sure."
It's OK to be cerebral. Don't they always say that the good players "think their way around the ice?"
The question is, with an entire province back home -- nay, an entire country -- stressing over Sunday's Game 6 and the fate of the team that was supposed to return Stanley to its country of origin for the first time since '93, what kind of thoughts are passing through the Canucks' collective mind these days?
Brouwer can only shake his head on that one.
"For me, I get recognized in Vancouver," he said. "So I can't imagine how much recognition they get.
"That's all there is, everywhere you look. Flags, signs, everything. You have to be strong about it, find ways to not worry about it and just play hockey."
Yeah. Good luck with that, Canucks.
The advice from this psychologist is, win Game 6. Because if you don't, you'll be going home to a lot of head trash for Game 7.
Mark Spector is the lead columnist for Sportsnet.ca
Follow me on Twitter.com @SportsnetSpec
