St. Louis Blues coach Andy Murray met with the media this afternoon and touched on a few topics regarding his team’s series against the Vancouver Canucks . . .

On what he’s telling the Blues to keep them encouraged: “As everyone knows here and it’s not to be cliche, we’ve approached this whole year right from training camp with our objective to win the next game. That’s what we plan to do.”

On whether any of the Blues have elevated their game in the playoffs: “I think everybody we’ve got can play better, and I think we as coaches can coach better. That’s the reason for optimism. What we’re thriving on right now, and we give the Canucks a lot of credit, they’re playing really well and we need to recognize that . . . (but) we just feel that we haven’t played up to our normal standard. You look at it and we’re down 3-0 in the series, but I think the Canucks would say there’s a battle every night. We’ve been in a one-goal hockey game with them in the third period all the way through. In our stretch of wins here in the second half of the season, we were the team that was finding the way to get the next goal. We were getting that big power-play goal, or our penalty-kill was doing a great job. We haven’t gotten that key play when we’ve needed it and the Canucks have. They’ve been deserving of the wins, that’s why they’ve won. That’s why we’ve got to go out and earn it tomorrow night.”

On the whether any power-play adjustments could help: “You don’t want to overcoach. There’s a couple of things that we can make adjustments on. But really, a coach would say it’s the players and they’ve just got to execute. But I’m responsible for the power play, so it needs to be better. We need to find a way to be more successful. We’ve had over four minutes of 5-on-3 and we’ve failed to score on it. If you look at the three games that we’ve lost, if we score some 5-on-3 goals, it’s possibly - POSSIBLY - a 2-1 series for the Blues right now. That’s how close the games have been. Again, we recognize the Canucks and what they’re doing, but it’s been a failure on our part.”

On containing Daniel and Henrik Sedin: “They’re just great players. It’s fun to watch them if you’re a spectator. I think 5-on-5, we’ve done an adequate job. There’s always room for improvement. We’re trying to limit the damage there.”

On the series overall: “We’re down 3-0, but it’s kind of like one of those (games) where you lost 4-1 and the other team scored two empty-net goals at the end and it looks bad 4-1. But it really wasn’t a 4-1 game. We’re down 3-0 and it is what it is, but somehow it doesn’t feel like a 3-0 series because we seem to be in every game. To the Canucks’ credit, they’ve find a way to get the wins and that’s going to serve them well. But we need to be the team that does it, because we have been that team.”

On how fine the line is between physical hockey and undisciplined penalties: “I think the referees have called great games . . . even that first game when the Canucks weren’t real happy with the officiating. I think the officials have called the game the right way. I think every penalty we’ve taken in the playoffs we’ve deserved. We need to be smarter. Obviously, you need to be physical. But sometimes you can go out of your way to be physical. You put yourself in a situation where you allow the referee to make a call, and I think that’s what has happened. We’ve got some young guys that have tried to be physical, but they haven’t necessarily gone about it the right way.”

On the potential of the David Backes-David Perron-Andy McDonald line: “I’m not sure how we’re going to play the other night. It’s good to try different things in practice and make you (reporters) think.”

On how Perron has played in this series: “Of our young guys, I would say David has probably been the best of the three, at this particular point. He needs to continue to work hard, but I think he’s working hard on the puck. He’s still got room for improvement as well, but he’s a good player. To think . . . two years ago, he couldn’t make a Midget AAA team and all of the sudden he’s in the NHL.”

On Paul Kariya’s availability for Game 4: “He feels good. He’s skating well out there. Paul will tell me when he’s ready to play.”

On why Kariya could play in Game 4 but couldn’t play in Game 3: “Again, Paul will play when he tells me he’s ready to play. That’s the bottom line.”

On any reasons why T.J. Oshie and Patrik Berglund have struggled in the series: “Well, we’ve got a number of players that haven’t played up to par. A couple of our young guys are in that group. We’ve got a couple of veterans in that category as well. They just need to play better.”

On how much of Blues power-play struggles are self-inflicted compared to Vancouver PK success: “I’ve paid a lot of compliments to the Canucks, but we need to be better. We need to make better decisions with the puck. We need to put the puck in the net, and we need to finish. Our power plays in Vancouver, Andy McDonald could have had three goals alone on the power play. We need to execute and finish.”

On whether the Blues are taking enough shots: “We’d obviously like to take more shots. But you look at the shot totals, I think they were even last night . . . we outshot them pretty good in the second game and going into the third period in Vancouver (in Game 1), I think we’d had a 10 or 12 shot differential and they really outshot us in the third. We’d still like to shoot more. Obviously you’ve got to have the puck to do that, and at times, our puck possession hasn’t been what we’d want. But I’d love to get 50 shots if we could. Their team plays well defensively, but we’ve got to find a way to penetrate.”

On former Blue Ryan Johnson: “RJ was one of my favorite players. Everybody knows I wish he were still here. He’s a great competitor, great person, great guy . . . well-liked, but not quite as well-liked over the last couple of games. His sacrificing to block shots was tremendous here. He’s one of those guys that you really enjoy coaching.”

On the penalty taken by B.J. Crombeen at the end of the second period: “What happened there is we had a line change and our guy came off real quick. B.J., he thought we didn’t have a player going (on the ice), but we did have a player going. But he jumped on the ice and obviously took that penalty there, which was ill-advised. He hadn’t played in the last seven minutes of that period, but somehow got out there in the last five minutes. When I looked at the clock, there was 11 seconds left. You think that guy out there is going to stay. So we didn’t say, ‘Next line up’ or whatever. Then the guy came off the ice. B.J. saw it and we were all watching the play. So he jumped on . . . unfortunate timing for him and us.”

On the play of Andy McDonald in this series: “He’s a competitor, good speed, he’s hard on the puck. He’s strong as a bull for a smaller guy. He’s an inspirational player for the way he plays. We’re so fortunate to have him, in my opinion, for the next four years at the dollars we got him at. To get a free-agent center on the market this summer . . . what’s it going to cost you? In Anaheim the year they won (the Stanley Cup), I think he was 86 points and in the playoffs he had a pile of points too.”