ST. LOUIS — The question was posed to Ken Hitchcock, and it was a high hard one.

“Does winning or losing Game 7 affect your legacy?” he was asked Sunday

“I’ve coached 40 years. My legacy is what I am,” said Hitchcock. “I think I can help with the knowledge I’ve had going through this before … legacies, they last a week, then you move on to the next one, somewhere else. People look at the big picture. I don’t.”

The Blues’ coach won a Stanley Cup in Dallas, got to the final another time, has a 79-75 career playoff record, and has 757 career regular-season wins, fourth best all-time.

His St. Louis team’s legacy, however, is this: A team that can’t win the big game. And, until, you do, you are what it says you are, which is the flip side of the Chicago Blackhawks, who just win, baby.

The Blues outplayed the Stanley Cup champion Hawks for most of the first four games of this first-round battle royal between the No 3 (Blues) and No. 5 (Hawks) seeds through 82 games, and had a 3-1 lead. They dropped Game 5 in double overtime when the Hawks looked to be on fumes but Patrick Kane kept them alive. In Game 6 on Saturday, the Blues were a mere speed bump for the Hawks through 20 very long minutes in the middle period and now we’re at Game 7.

We know what the Hawks are, a team that never gives up. And the Blues?

As Hitchcock says, he’s comfortable in his own skin. There’s a likelihood he’ll take the bullet with his coaching staff if the Blues don’t win this series because he’s on a one-year contract and it took GM Doug Armstrong weeks after last spring’s first-round loss to Minnesota, before he brought Hitchcock back. But, he’s a big boy; he’ll live with whatever happens. The team? It has to shed its label of coming up small (15 times out in round one since 1979-80, 151-189 lifetime in playoffs), even if it’s the Cup champs they’re playing in round one.

So does it come down to X’s and O’s or heart and head now?

“It comes down to being comfortable with being uncomfortable,” said Hitchcock. “That’s the element …the knowledge you crave that you hope the players understand. That’s how you get to the next level. It’s enjoying the moment.”

Like the Hawks. “They’ve reached a stage like they did last year (Cup) and it’s up to us to answer the bell. Now it’s our turn,” Hitchcock said.

When you’re down to your last crack, after being up 3-1, and suddenly it’s Game 7, how can the Blues be enjoying this, though? They still have a very good team but the Hawks’ play in Game 6 kicked a hole in the underbelly of the club. Some of their veterans did not play well; at the top of the list was defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk. He gave the puck up on Andrew Ladd’s early goal, and it didn’t get a whole lot better. At times, it looked like rookie Colton Parayko was carrying him.

“We shovelled pucks yesterday. We didn’t skate. Under pressure, we didn’t skate it out of exits and create the separation that we’ve been very good at all year. We pushed it. Once you start pushing the puck you get hemmed in. We got hemmed in because we pushed pucks rather than skated it out,” said Hitchcock.

Do not put goalie Brian Elliott on that list though. Even if he gave up five in Game 6 and four the game before. Early on, he was the reason, the Blues got up 3-1 in the series, giving up seven goals in 151 shots.

“Might have been 5-3 or 6-3 after the second period last night ... Moose (Elliott) he made a couple of great saves,” said centre Paul Stastny, who wasn’t biting when asked if the Blues were hoping the clock could have been running time in the second so they’d get to the dressing room to try and regroup even if they chased the puck for the full 20 minutes.

Somebody actually asked Hitchcock if Elliott was starting Game 7, though, like he’d ever bring young Jake Allen out of the bullpen.

“Yeah, Elliott’s playing,” said Hitchcock.

The question is will the Blues go quietly or dig in?

This is a very good team, a legit Stanley Cup threat, but can it put back the ghosts of past defeats against a Hawks’ team that’s started to get contributions from the Dale Weises and the Richard Paniks, a revived Andrew Ladd, who until Game 6, looked like he was playing himself out of a big free-agent payday, and the estimable two-way forward Marian Hossa, who has scored in two straight games after his hands were ice-cold.

How do they make sure past failures don’t choke the life out of them in game seven?

“You guys stop talking about it,” laughed winger Troy Brouwer, who will be playing his seventh straight Game 7 (one in Chicago, game seven loss to Vancouver in 2011; five in Washington and now this one.

His record? “Not good, 2-4,” laughed Brouwer, wondering when somebody would ask his success rate.

But this is about the Blues success rate in playoff series. Only one series win in the last 12 years.

“We’re not talking about it in the room. Guys are putting that in the past. We’re looking forward. The thing that is so difficult and sometimes people don’t realize is there’s only one champion. Unless you’re that champion, you’re always going to be looked at as not quite getting there. We want to change that in our dressing room, for our franchise. We want to be the champion,” said Brouwer.

Brent Seabrook has played in five game sevens under Joel Quenneville but doesn’t lie.

“You never get used to them. When you play in more of them — I don’t know if comfortable’s the word — but you’re not as nervous,” said Seabrook. “I just love playing big games, period.”

There’s none bigger than this one for the Blues. Should we invoke their history?

“No, but it’s always talked about, right? It’s going to change eventually, then why not do it tomorrow?” said Stastny.

TARASENKO JUST WANTS TO PLAY

The TV cameras picked up some discord between St. Louis Blues’ gunner Vlad Tarasenko and his coach Ken Hitchcock after the second period Saturday in Chicago but Hitchcock shrugged it off.

Tarasenko wanted to be on the power play but couldn’t get out, and he was angry.

Tarasenko had scored in the first on a bullet 5-on-5 and has 14 goals in 19 career playoff games, and with the Blues down 4-3, he was stuck on the bench on a power play. He wanted to make a difference, but that wasn’t the coach’s fault. It was circumstance that Tarasenko sat for just eight late seconds.

“His line had just come off a long shift, and they were tired. So I was trying to cheat to get time, to give them a rest, but the referee wouldn’t let us cheat. He wanted our players out there right away,” said Hitchcock.

“The group that went out there did a great job. They kept it in there, they had five scoring chances. You’re not going to take it back into your end and regroup to make a change when you’ve got it in their end the whole time. And that happened to be the only power play in the game.”

Tarasenko is a lightning rod with fans who want him playing closer to 20 minutes than 17, however, with his great hands. Hitchcock likes to spread his minutes around democratically on his top three lines and give his big gun some gravy PP time, but there was none of that in game six.

So Tarasenko played 4:46 in the first period, 5:49 in the second and 6:21 in the third, all even. Eight shifts in the first, 10 in the second, nine in the third. His 16:56 was fifth most on the Blues behind David Backes 19:47, Paul Stastny’s 18:43,Alex Steen’s 18:14 and Jaden Schwartz’s 17:00. Backes and Steen doing lots penalty-killing; Tarasenko does none. But, in Game 7 Hitchcock will have to find a way to get him on the ice more than 16:53, especially early in a game.

Tarasenko’s 27 shifts were only one behind Backes, Stastny and Steen, though. His shifts are just shorter. He averaged 37 seconds, Backes 43, Stastny 40.

“It’s hard because of the way he plays and the energy that he takes. When you view a player ... knowledgeable hockey people don’t look at time, they look at shifts, and shifts matter,” said Hitchcock. “He plays a short ice game with short shifts and that’s impacts his energy. He’s a big body who gets leaned on, he leans on a lot of people. It’s very wearing. The game he plays is a physical game, it’s at the puck, it’s around the puck, it’s one-on-one and it’s very demanding.”

“He’s not going to be a 48, 49-second hockey player and be effective. He’s a guy that has to play in short bursts and that’s what he does. He plays great in shorts bursts so his energy stays high,” said Hitchcock.

Tarasenko wasn’t made available to the media Sunday to offer up his side of things but Stastny shrugged it off.

“He’s emotional always, that’s what makes him a special player,” said Stastny. “The top guys want to be out there 60 minutes a game if they could. There are always going to be little thing caught in the heat of the moment.”

“What did he (Tarasenko) have, 28, 30 shifts last night? (27). That’s a lot of shifts and the ice time ... if you looked at it and you had 50 seconds as an average instead of 33, well that’s a 23-minute player — which is incredible. But he’s not able to play that way ... maybe at 28 or 29 he can play that way or whatever, but he’s a young guy who plays a big man’s game that’s physically demanding, especially at this time of the year,” said Hitchcock.

Patrick Kane conversely played 26 shifts but 22:02. His shifts averaged 50 seconds to Tarasenko’s 37. But he’s a different kind of player, a crafty bob ’n weaver, a dancer with the puck. He’s not spending a lot of time muscling people off pucks.

If Tarasenko killed penalties would he get more ice time?

“As he gets older, he’ll be able to do that. (Jonathan) Toews is up there (21:10 in game six) because he does that,” said Hitchcock.