In a, so far, highly inconsistent season for the Sharks which has seen them go on somewhat of a roller coaster ride, the last thing they needed was for one of their two franchise leaders to go down with an injury. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened Wednesday night in Anaheim against the Ducks when former Sharks Captain Joe Thornton collided with Clayton Stoner and immediately headed off the ice with an upper body injury.
Yes, the Sharks went on to shut the Ducks out 3-0 but the question remained. What would the Sharks look like without their number one center in their line-up? How would they respond? Of course, hockey’s a team game, and talking to CSN Bay Area’s Sharks Insider Kevin Kurz, head coach Todd McLellan certainly agreed with that notion before Saturday night’s game against the St. Louis Blues:
"When you lose a player of his stature and caliber and skill level, everybody has to pick it up a little bit. If that happens, we give ourselves a chance. If it doesn’t, we’ll be chasing it from behind.– head coach Todd McLellan on the loss of Joe Thornton from Sharks’ line-up"
Unfortunately, the latter is exactly what happened last night as the Sharks were just outright embarrassed by the Blues in front of their home fans, which begs the question… how would the Sharks really be without Jumbo?
Obviously, we know that he’s well-known as one of the best playmakers in the National Hockey League. He makes his team mates around him a lot better with his phenomenal passing. He’s excellent in face-offs. He sees the ice at a higher level than almost everyone else. However, would his absence be any more of an impact on the Sharks than, say, if young seasoned veterans like Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski (whom in all my four years of watching the Sharks play has never missed a game due to injury, Pavs has not; of course, correct me if I’m wrong) went down with an injury? Sure, Joe Thornton has seen a lot more time in the NHL than the other two considering he was drafted by his former team, the Boston Bruins, four years before Pavs was drafted by the Sharks. Honest question, though, does his absence really make much of a difference?
In my opinion, in the long run, it shouldn’t but I think it does. Why? Joe Thornton’s obviously been one of the two center pieces to the organization, the other being Patrick Marleau. Without him, there’s a real high possibility that the Sharks wouldn’t even have made the playoffs for ten consecutive seasons. With Joe Thornton out, like Todd McLellan said everyone’s got to step their game up. Keep in mind that this season is the real test for Doug Wilson and the entire Sharks squad, but most importantly for the general manager himself. This is the first real chance to see what the Sharks are really made of. Of course, as I’ve pointed out a couple times before in my other articles, at this point we really don’t know what Sharks team we’re going to see. Are we going to see a San Jose team that goes out with 110% effort and plays to win or the lackluster Sharks team that we saw last night and during last year’s playoffs in the first round against the Los Angeles Kings? That’s for them to decide whether or not they want to step their game up with Thornton out of the line-up. The problem is, so far, I think they haven’t really established much of an identity especially with him out of the line-up.
Furthermore, the way they’ve played so far losing against bottom-tier teams and winning those big games against big rivals except L.A. so far (not really counting their first game against them at the very start of the season because the Kings were too busy celebrating their second Cup run), their mentality is at a dangerous level. If they can bring their A game again without Jumbo Joe in their line-up against the Winnipeg Jets and Minnesota Wild, both games being back-to-back and having already struggled once in Minnesota, they shouldn’t have a problem if they just keep their philosophy simple. If they play again like they did Saturday night against the Blues in the next few to couple games, however long Joe Thornton’s going to be out of the line-up, they’re going to struggle night in and night out and they’re only going to make it harder on themselves to even contend for a playoff spot come time for the playoff race now closing in on the halfway mark through this season.