The San Jose Sharks travelled here Wednesday, coming in a day early to prepare for Friday night's third game of the Western Conference final - a good idea if only to adjust to the two-hour time change and get out of town, where they'd dropped the first two games of the series to the Blackhawks and were mostly left to read their own obits.
Coach Todd McLellan had a thoroughly good outing at the podium following Thursday's practice and availabilities at the United Center, noting that he was okay with the fact that his team showed some emotion post-game following the back-to-back defeats at home.
"You're allowed to be passionate at this time of the year," said McLellan. "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 [both]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. If we channel it, try to target Chicago, use our frustration on them, we have a chance to come back."
As for defenceman Dan Boyle's assertion in San Jose the other day that the club needed to show its collective middle finger to its detractors, McLellan commented: "Boyler, he's a very easy-going guy in July and August at the lake when he's doing what he's supposed to be doing. When he's in the locker room, around the rink, he's as serious and intense as anybody that I've been around.
"That's a very good quality right now. We need that from him. We need him to grab some people and take them with him right now. That's why we consider him a real valuable leader.
"With that, he's got to watch how far he takes it because he can't get guys in too deep or too frustrated as well. Danny can handle anything individually. He'll continue to lead collectively."
On Thursday, Boyle wanted to clarify that he hasn't been questioning his own club's work ethic, saying the Sharks are working hard, but may not necessarily be working smart.
"It's execution, it's getting something accomplished every time you're on the ice. You don't have to be scoring goals, but getting something accomplished. That's more the message I wanted to relay after Game 2. It was taken out of context. I meant more the effort."
And finally this from Jumbo Joe Thornton, about playing to a capacity crowd at the United Center: "I love playing in this building. It's pretty electric. 20,000 fans going crazy, it's a good building to play in. We've had some success here in the past. We're looking forward to that tomorrow."