Sharks' challenge: Keeping their cool

Over the past few days, the play of Blackhawks center Dave Bolland against San Jose's top line of Joe Thornton, Dany Heatley and Patrick Marleau has been called everything from irritating to gritty to tenacious.

The Sharks beg to differ.

"It's fun for the media to have that line - agitators against offensive guys," Heatley said. "Really it's four lines against four lines.

"Everyone likes to talk. I like to talk. I find it fun."

"I don't find him very irritating; I find him very easy to play against, to be honest with you," Thornton said. "I'm a pretty big guy and he's a little guy, so I don't find it too difficult at all."

The numbers don't quite back that up as Bolland, along with Andrew Ladd and Kris Versteeg, have kept Thornton's line awfully quiet in the first two games. Except toward the end of the Hawks' win in Game 2, that is, when San Jose's frustration began to show in the form of some pushing, shoving and even a little slashing.

It was Thornton who was whistled for a slash on Bolland late in the game, but his coach was nontheless pleased to see a spark remained in his players and carried over into the locker room afterward.

"Not unusual and I did like to see it," Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. "I said this in San Jose: You're allowed to be passionate at this time of the year. We expect that. We expect you to be frustrated when it's not going your way.

"But it's what you do with that, how you handle it, how you channel it. We as a group, as a team, likely won't be good enough to beat Chicago and frustration. We have to pick one or the other. If we end up trying to beat the frustration all the time, we won't have enough left in our tanks to beat Chicago."

His players seem to be buying it.

"I think obviously late in the game, people get into it," Marleau said. "It's on both sides, too. It's frustration on our part, but that you are getting into it as well. It's just one of those things.

"We just talked about coming here - getting our game going, playing a lot better."

The Sharks don't have much of a choice as a huge Game 3 looms tonight.

"It's a must-win for both of us," Thornton said. "If they win they have a stranglehold on the series. If we win, we're back in the series.

"We know we can be better. We saw some video this morning that shows we can be better. We addressed everything and we'll be ready for (tonight)."