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Joe’s Dime Goes Long Way - Apr. 11, 2006 - Vol. 59, Issue 20– Mark Brender

The San Jose Sharks’ late-March charter flight into Detroit was delayed taking off, so naturally Joe Thornton figured he’d do something to assist. He strolled up to coach Ron Wilson and made his pitch.

“Hey, coach,” Thornton said, surely with that boyish gleam in his eye, “I promise if we get in on time, I won’t take the boys out tonight.”

And to think, one of the criticisms of Thornton in Boston was that he never took charge of situations. The anti-Thornton brigade in Bruin country – a faction that did not exist in any significant measure inside the Bruins dressing room – said he was never able to carry the boys to where they all wanted to go.

In San Jose he’s taking charge plenty. And he has the credit card bills to prove it.

“Our group goes out to dinner a lot,” says GM Doug Wilson, “and it seems to often be on his nickel.”

Thornton, he of the three-year, $20-million contract, doesn’t deny it: “Whoever makes the most has to pay the most, you know?”

That’s the kind of team-building swagger the NHL’s runaway assist leader has brought to the Sharks, who were floundering before GM Wilson pulled off the trade of the season Nov. 30, acquiring him from Boston for Marco Sturm, Wayne Primeau and Brad Stuart. Nearly five months later, with Thornton in the running for the Hart Trophy as league MVP and a shoo-in to be named first-team all-star center, it seems just as ridiculous a trade as it did at the time.

The standings say both teams have benefitted from the deal (see graphic), although with a few weeks left in the season San Jose had gained 13 more points since the trade than the Bruins. More telling is that the Sharks are also in the thick of the playoff hunt. More telling still is that the GM who advocated letting Thornton get away, Boston’s Mike O’Connell, no longer has a job.

And if Doug Wilson had ever turned down a trade like this, no matter what shape the Sharks were in at the time, the same should have been said for him.

To his credit, the GM knew opportunities like this one don’t come along often: If Thornton, with 106 points and a remarkable 81 assists through 70 games, manages to edge out Jaromir Jagr for the scoring title, it would be the first time in history that a player was traded during the season in which he captures the Art Ross.

Only now entering the prime of his career, Thornton gives the Sharks a one-two punch down the middle along with fellow 26-year-old Patrick Marleau that could well turn out to be the Sakic-Forsberg or Yzerman-Fedorov or Modano-Nieuwendyk of the NHL’s open-ice generation.

Big and powerful, yet with the creative touch of a small-brush artist, Thornton has helped elevate Jonathan Cheechoo from promising second-liner to goal-scoring phenom. Thornton is likely to finish the season with 25 per cent more assists than his closest pursuers, Jagr and Atlanta’s Marc Savard; no player has had that margin of playmaking superiority since Wayne Gretzky in 1991.

“I think we all have confidence in one another,” he says, “and confidence is contagious.”

Yet Thornton insists he is doing nothing different in a Sharks uniform on-ice than what he did for the Bruins. The stats say Thornton is right, he is still playing the same; his 1.55 points per game with the Sharks is only marginally better than the 1.43 he posted during 23 games with the Bruins.

Nor, he says, is the more laid-back hockey culture in California any more conducive to on-ice success for his laid-back personality. The feeling around the team is what has changed.

“I haven’t changed my game. Still play the same way,” Thornton says. “Just the atmosphere, the atmosphere is totally different. Being at the rink, it’s just enjoyable every day…Doug and Ron, they’re just real positive people.”

Because Thornton is much the same, they mesh. But the Bruins hierarchy didn’t always have such a benefit-of-the-doubt attitude towards Thornton’s easygoing manner. And there are stats to suggest that perhaps Thornton picked things up in San Jose in other ways; on teams with similar save percentage figures, he had been on ice for fewer goals against at even strength this season in 47 games with San Jose (21) than in 23 games with Boston this season (23).

“In all areas of the game, this is as well as I’ve ever seen him play, and I’ve been following him for a long time,” Doug Wilson said. “We’ve been very impressed with everything he’s done. But we had high expectations of him coming in, too.”

Back in Boston, Thornton’s house hasn’t sold yet. Far as he knows, it hasn’t even been put on the market. He thinks that’s supposed to happen sometime soon. Somebody will take care of it. No reason to sweat the details.

Photo Credit: Leon Halip-Imagn Images

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