Sharks’Joe Thornton set to join NHL’s 1,000 assists club.
Thornton two assists away from becoming 13th NHL player to achieve 1,000
SAN JOSE — Joe Thornton said it will be neat to join one of the most exclusive clubs in hockey. But like so many of the game’s greats, he’s reticent to go into tremendous detail about soon becoming only the 13th NHL player to record 1,000 assists.
“When I hit it, I’ll kind of peek and see who’s on that list,” Thornton said last week. “It’s a nice accomplish- ment, I guess.”
Some of the players who have been linemates with Thornton over the years will freely discuss what he has meant to their careers. But they don’t have to articulate much, either. Their individual statistics say it all.
In his first season as Thornton’s linemate with the Boston Bruins, Glen Murray went from a combined 24 goals over two seasons from 2000-02 to 35 goals in 2002-03.
Jonathan Cheechoo had an impres- sive 28 goals in 2003-04, his second season in the NHL. But he doubled that total in 2005-06 when Thornton was acquired by the Sharks on Nov. 30, 2005.
Patrick Marleau was also enjoying a solid start to his NHL career. But he had his first of seven 30-goal seasons after Thornton became a Shark.
Thornton, 37, has been badgered for not shooting enough over the
course of his 19-year NHL career. But in 1,427 games, in which he has collected 382 goals and 998 assists for 1,380 points (23rd-most alltime), Thornton has made just about everyone he has played with better.
According to statistics compiled by Sports Illustrated’s Jeremy Fuchs last spring as the Sharks advanced to the Stanley Cup Final, every player who has skated at least 600 minutes with Thornton since the start of the 2006-07 season has seen their production drop when taken off Thornton’s line.
“The assist numbers are incredible,” said Eddie Olczyk, an NBC hockey analyst and 16-year NHL veteran. “It’s tough to find guys to put up points in the National Hockey League consistently, and he’s a guy that’s always been pass-first. He’s made other players a lot of money around him.”
Everything changed for the Sharks the day general manager Doug Wilson made the biggest trade in team history by acquiring Thornton.
A 10-game losing streak was halted and a six-game winning streak began. Thornton would continue to establish himself as one of the most dynamic playmakers of his generation.
Cheechoo went on to score 56 goals, still a singleseason team record, and win the Rocket Richard Trophy as the NHL’s leading goalscorer. Thornton would win the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s leader in points with 125, and the Hart Trophy as the MVP.
In Thornton’s first game with the Sharks, he assisted on two Cheechoo goals and helped the team earn a 5-0 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Dec. 2, 2005. It was the first two of his 713 assists in a Sharks uniform.
Cheechoo, who is playing with Bratislava of the KHL, said in an email to this newspaper, “I had watched him play and knew what a great passer he was and how he could take over a game.
“I think we meshed right away. I love to shoot and score and he’s tough to contain and gives you that extra second to get open.”
Looking back, Cheechoo said he was surprised to see that Thornton was even available. So was Murray, who said there wasn’t any indication beforehand that Thornton, who had taken the brunt of the blame for the Bruins’ playoff failures during that time, would be dealt.
Still, Murray, now in player development with the Los Angeles Kings, hasn’t played with many players like Thornton.
“He’s super, super competitive,” Murray said. “He just has an incredible ability to give you the puck when you want it and where you want it.”
As Thornton notes, he wouldn’t be on the cusp of this milestone if he hadn’t been alongside so many talented goal scorers.
It’s perhaps not a coincidence that several of them, such as Murray, Cheechoo, Devin Setoguchi and Joe Pavelski, have also been right-handed shots, easily able to take passes in prime scoring areas from the left-shooting Thornton.
“If you’re a righty and you love to shoot the puck, he’s the best guy in the world you can play with,” Sharks center Logan Couture said,
Even at this stage in his career, Thornton’s rare combination of size, strength, skill and vision has made him tough to defend.
“If you’re going to play the body, he still has his stick free,” Marleau said. “If you’re going to play his stick, he can pull it eight feet in the other direction and still make the play.
“To have the vision to know where to put pucks, the vision to think the play out before it happens. One of the other things the best players do: they know what to do with the puck before they get it or can make something happen out of nothing.”
That was the case in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals against the St. Louis Blues in San Jose in May.
Thornton collected the puck in the corner to the right of goalie Brian Elliott, took a quick peek at Pavelski near the slot, and found Tomas Hertl behind the net with a bullet pass right on the tape past forward Jaden Schwartz.
Hertl took the puck, skated out front and beat Elliott for what was then a 3-0 Sharks lead in the third period.
“It’s nearly impossible” to teach that vision, Couture said. “The way he’s able to take a quick peek out of the corner of his eye and find someone, deliver it through sticks, it’s pretty special.”
The question is how long does Thornton wish to keep playing, and how long will he do so as a member of the Sharks?
Certainly there’s no desire on Thornton’s part to stop any time soon. Thornton’s five goals and 34 assists this season represent a sharp drop from last year when he finished with 82 points in 82 games.
Wilson’s policy is to not publicly discuss contract negotiations. From all indi- cations, though, the meat of those talks will happen at the end of the season.
But as Thornton plays on the top line alongside Pavelski and Kevin Labanc, remains a fixture on the No. 1 power-play unit and averages over 18 minutes of ice time per game, he’s still an important piece for the Sharks. In the 30 games this season in which Thornton has scored at least a point, the Sharks are 22-6-2. In the 30 games he hasn’t had a point, they are 13-12-5.
“For me, it’s all about my health,” he said. “If my health is there, if my desire’s there, if my love for the game is still there, I think I’ll play as long as I can. As soon as that wavers, I think I’ll know it’s time.”
Whenever he does hang up the skates, his place in NHL history will be secured alongside some of the greatest to ever play.
“Joe loves hockey, he appreciates the history and he knows what it means to be the 13th player to do this,” said John Thornton, Joe’s older brother and agent. “He knows everybody above him and the greatness of the guys he’s passed.”