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The Joes' Last Stand? - Jan. 28, 2019 – Ryan Kennedy

IN THE VISITORS’ DRESSING room at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, the two players who have defined the identity of the San Jose Sharks for more than a decade sit two stalls apart, separated only by Lukas Radil, a 28-year-old NHL freshman from the Czech Republic who is, at the moment, sporting a shiner under both eyes.

It’s only fitting that Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski are so closely tethered in the Sharks’ inner sanctum. No two players in franchise history have defined Los Tiburones the way they have. One was a prodigy at 14, dominating in a Jr. B league against players five years older, a shaggy-haired phenom who was pegged for superstardom long before he was drafted first overall, and has not disappointed. The Hall of Fame awaits. The other had to wait an extra year and almost 500 names just to have his name called at the draft – all 291 in 2002 and 205 in 2003 – only to become one of the greatest late picks the game has ever seen.

The two took polar-opposite ways to San Jose, but have shared a common sense of purpose once they got there. “We have a lot of leaders, but our leadership group has expanded because the culture that has been set by the two Joes,” said Sharks GM Doug Wilson. “How we do things. Love for the game. Preparation. (Our players) have had the privilege of being around those two guys, and that’s what sets the tone for our organization. Those two guys are special people, and any young guys we bring into our team, this is the way we do things around here. And that’s set by those two.”

As impossible as it may be to contemplate, the day will come when San Jose will be Sans Joes (see what we did there?). Thornton, who has had reconstructive surgery on both knees over the past 24 months, turns 40 this coming summer and is clearly on the year-to-year plan. Pavelski, who trails only Alex Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos and John Tavares in goals since the start of 2011-12, is in the final year of his contract and will become an unrestricted free agent if he doesn’t sign an extension prior to July 1. Where Thornton is gregarious, playful and chatty, Pavelski is, publicly at least, guarded and economical with his words. Nothing illustrates the radically different approaches more than a recent exchange involving both of them regarding Pavelski’s future in San Jose.

Reporter: “Joe, just wondering how you see this all playing out.”

Joe Pavelski: “I want to be in San Jose. You see it in San Jose. You see it in San Jose.”

Reporter: “What does that mean?”

Pavelski: “I don’t know. What does your question mean?”

Reporter: “Well, it is the last year of your contract.”

Joe Thornton (peeling his gear off): “Do you think he’s going to give you the honest answer here?”

Pavelski: “You think I’m going to retire?”

Reporter: “No, I don’t.”

Pavelski: “I’ve been here. This is what I know, and this is what I want.”

Thornton: “F---in’ right! The Sharks are the best!”

Pavelski: “Whether it happens, we’ll see. I don’t know. We’ll see.”

Thornton: “He’s a Shark! He’s a Shark!”

Pavelski: “I gave you an answer, and you didn’t like it.”

Reporter: “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

Thornton: “I liked it!”

Pavelski: “What do you think?”

Reporter: “I think you’re going to be here the rest of your career.”

Thornton: “I liked it! I liked it! I love it!”

Pavelski: “Now, (Patrick) Marleau hitting 1,600 games, that’s a story. I hope you get that story. That is incredible. That’s unbelievable.”

Thornton: “He’s a machine. The boys said this morning he’s played over 600 games straight. 731. That’s unbelievable. That’s unreal.”

Pavelski: “Nice talk.”

70 Days Until Opening Day: The Sharks' History of Number 70 We’re just 70 days away from the San Jose Sharks kicking off their season against the Vegas Golden Knights.

Yeah, for sure. All of the caginess aside, that exchange illustrates a modus operandi for the Sharks. In San Jose, they have a very distinct way of going about things, and that is made clear to players the moment they set foot in the dressing room.

It’s all part of the culture that has been created and perpetuated by Thornton and Pavelski that nobody, not even the best players, go before the team. Ever. That’s why so many players want to play there and why they often end up staying there. Wilson tries to create an environment where he gives the team the best chance it can have to contend for a Stanley Cup year in and year out, and the players respond by following in lockstep with both Pavelski and Thornton, who place the collective above the individual. Every. Single. Time.

If Pavelski does end up signing a new contract with the Sharks, it will be the fifth of his career with the same team. Who does that these days? Well, Thornton, who is on his fifth contract with the Sharks this season, clearly does. Then again, Marleau played for the Sharks for a period of five contracts before signing a three-year deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the summer of 2017. But the prospect of either Thornton or Pavelski wearing anything but the logo of a shark biting through a hockey stick would be, well, kind of weird. “I keep it short term,” Thornton said. “My thought process has always been day to day, and that’s what’s got me this far. Keep it simple. I prepare every day the same way I did 10 years ago, and I think that’s a good mindset to have.”

I JUST KNOW I ENJOY COMING TO THE RINK, I ENJOY COMPETING EVERY DAY STILL, AND I KNOW I CAN HELP OUT THE TEAM STILL – Joe Thornton

Players never retire from any sport because they don’t want to play the games anymore. Quite to the contrary, actually. The games, along with the camaraderie of their teammates, is usually what they miss the most when they decide to quit. What eventually drives most athletes out of the game is the prospect of having to actually prepare for another season. The off-seasons in the gym and the thought of having to push an aging body harder to simply stem the tide of decline is almost always the deciding factor. Father Time, the last we checked, is still undefeated.

That reality has smacked Thornton right in the chops the past couple of years. Before injuring his right knee last season, Thornton had been eligible to play in 973 games for the Sharks since joining them in the middle of 2005-06 and he had played in a mind-boggling 961 of them. He had come off surgery on both his medial collateral and arterial cruciate ligaments in his left knee the summer before. The injury limited him to just 47 games last season, then forced him to miss nine more games this season when the knee became infected.

“It hasn’t been easy, that’s for sure,” Thornton said. “After being relatively healthy for 20 years and then, boom, the left knee goes out at the end of the year. Rehabbing all summer and not feeling great at the start of the year and coming back and feeling really good by December and having the other knee blow out it’s like, ‘Holy Christ, what’s next?’ Dealing with that all summer, rehabbing and playing a couple of games and knowing you’ve got an infection in it and getting shut down and restarting all over again, for a guy who’s always been healthy, it’s definitely a change, watching games, sitting out, but it is what it is. I’ve got nothing to complain about. I’m healthy today, and that’s all that matters.”

Those who watched Thornton rehabilitate both his knees coming off those injuries marvel at the work he put in just to get healthy enough to play again. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Wilson said.

Added Sharks coach Peter DeBoer: “People don’t see the behind-the-scenes stuff. The guy has gone through two reconstructions on his knees in the last 24 months. When you do that, you guys see him when he gets out to start to practice, but you don’t see the four months of being in the gym every day, twice a day, the rehab, the trainers working on him. It’s endless, the hours he’s put in over the past 24 months.”

And it is clearly the love of the game that continued to drive Thornton as he worked his way back into the lineup. He is no longer a top-line player in San Jose. In fact, he has been skating on the third line, behind Pavelski and Logan Couture on the depth chart, with youngsters Marcus Sorensen and Kevin Labanc as his wingers. His ice time is down – way, way down – from where it has been most of his career. Through the first third of the season, Thornton was averaging just 15:36 per game, which is the lowest since the second season of his career.

In many ways, Thornton has already passed the torch. Pavelski, meanwhile, continues to chug along at 19 minutes a game, which is actually slightly higher than his career average. Some of that has to do with power-play time, but a lot of it has to do with the fact he’s still an elite scorer with a deadly shot and an ability to create plays and win faceoffs. It has been some time since the Sharks became Pavelski’s team, the one that was passed to him from Thornton, and the same one that one day he’ll pass along to Couture. “I let that go years ago,” Thornton said. “I just know I enjoy coming to the rink, I enjoy competing every day still, and I know I can help out the team still.”

The Sharks, meanwhile, spent the first third of the season in the thick of the playoff race looking like a lot of teams in the Pacific Division, great one night and not so great the next. This is a team that seems to take its time gaining its footing most seasons but has the ability to know when to start making a push. For his part, Thornton feels that in his own game. He reckons it will be sometime in 2019 when he really begins to hit his stride and get his timing back. Like his team, there have been some stops and starts. After a 5-3 loss to Toronto in late November, Pavelski said he thought the Sharks were close to finding their game. Couture, the burgeoning leader of this group, was far more blunt in his assessment. “In my personal opinion, I don’t think we’re close,” Couture said. “We have to figure it out soon. I’m a believer that it takes time.”

Time is an interesting commodity when it comes to the Sharks. There was a period when it looked like only a matter of time before this group, led by Thornton and Pavelski, would win a Cup. That hasn’t happened yet. The acquisition of superstar defenseman Erik Karlsson, another player who faces an uncertain future at the moment, was part of Wilson’s pledge to his team that he would do whatever he could to keep that hope alive.

Brent Burns remains an elite defenseman, and the Sharks do have the wherewithal to put together a long run in the playoffs. If they were to win the Cup, Pavelski would be the first to take it, and would immediately hand it off to Thornton. The time for that to happen in San Jose is waning. The handoff of the ‘C’ from Thornton to Pavelski, which came after the Sharks blew a 3-0 first-round series lead to Los Angeles in 2014, then missed the playoffs entirely the next season, was awkward to say the least. There were some major reparations needed to the relationship between Wilson and Thornton, but the latter never directed any of his dissatisfaction at Pavelski.

I’VE BEEN HERE. THIS IS WHAT I KNOW, AND THIS IS WHAT I WANT – Joe Pavelski

As Thornton said, he let that go a long time ago. As the milestones continue to fall – next up are Teemu Selanne and Stan Mikita on the NHL’s all-time scoring list – Thornton only knows about them when he’s informed he’s approaching one, usually by members of the team’s support staff. As for Pavelski, only one player drafted later than 205th has more career goals than he does. That would be Dave Taylor, who was taken 210th in 1975, then went on to score 431 times. Pavelski is within 100 of that total, and there’s no reason to believe he won’t eclipse that mark in the next three seasons.

Pavelski wants to come back, and the Sharks will almost certainly find a way. And it looks as though Thornton wants to stay. “I love it,” said Thornton of his career. “I love the road, I like the late nights, I like the plane rides. It’s great. I love it. Who knows? Day to day. It’s a good way to look at it.”

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