joethornton Page index.xml - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Nathan MacKinnon is doing things to Avalanche fans
Seeing a four-goal game is perhaps the rarest thing a hockey fan can witness in person. It’s not too far off from seeing a no-hitter. I’ve been going to hockey games for 364 years, and I’ve seen one. Steve Thomas vs. the Devils in March of 1990 at Chicago Stadium. I didn’t have to look that up (well...
Teams are lining up to give Evander Kane his 34th chance
If we’re midway through another NHL season or thereabouts, it must mean that Evander Kane has fucked up in some way....
Catching up with the NHL (We hardly had time to miss ya!)
The NHL is back on its regular schedule after two straight pandemic-curtailed seasons, and that means it kicks off right now, even though it still doesn’t feel like hockey season outside in most of North America....
2021 NHL Previews: Fifty-four years between Cups for Toronto, going on 55
The Toronto Maple Leafs have now crossed the Rangers Line. The most famous Stanley Cup drought in history belonged to New York, which for years had to hear “1940” chants until Mark Messier, Mike Richter, and company finally broke the hex in 1994....
Hey, Jumbo: That Cup isn’t happening
Joe Thornton is a pretty divisive player in NHL circles. Some people love him, love his beard, and consider him a sure-fire Hall of Famer. Others believe Jumbo Joe to be a quietly dirty player citing examples like incessantly sticking his finger in Henrik Sedin’s eye during a game in 2011 and his hi...
Now the Leafs have the calamity they’ve always wanted
Because everything is outsized with the Leafs, the idea that they’ve been coughing up genuine chances at the Stanley Cup year-after-year has grown at the rate and scale of The Blob. Being the Leafs, everything around them is audibly multiplied by at least 12, so the sheer volume that is emitted from...
Seems like old times, eh Leafs?
By now you know the key points. The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967, haven’t been to the Final since then either, haven’t beaten the Canadiens in a series since their ’67 title clash, won their first division title since 2000 this season (thanks to being in the all-Canadia...
It’s happening to Erik Karlsson again
Erik Karlsson has always generated an infuriating debate amongst hockey observers, where the “old school” — i.e. Molson-filled and incontinent old Canadians who somehow fell out of a duck blind and into a TV studio — could never reconcile Karlsson’s style of not eating pucks regularly and his desire...
Now that Clayton Kershaw has won a World Series, what other long-suffering stars are still searching for a title?
Clayton Kershaw did it. A superstar athlete with a tendency to fade in postseason play has won a championship....
Don't Send Joe Thornton To The Old Folks Home Just Yet
On your typical playoff team that features a wizened old veteran looking for his first-ever championship, the old guy isn’t much more than a walking feel-good story, there to positively affect the locker room and take charge with the media. As the San Jose Sharks moved through the Western Conference...
Is This The End For Joe Thornton And The Sharks As We Know Them?
The San Jose Sharks have been reduced in their time to being the NHL’s glorified version of the Portland Trail Blazers—almost always in the playoffs, always ultimately being on the business end of a handshake line. It’s almost a zen koan at this point; when unrequited love turns to “Call us when you...
Ryan Reaves Wasn't Going To Let Joe Thornton Face A Suspension Without Getting In A Burn
The NHL’s Department of Player Safety has been busy in this young postseason. Tampa’s Nikita Kucherov was handed a one-game suspension for boarding, Toronto’s Nazem Kadri is probably going to get something like five games for this, and now it’s Joe Thornton’s turn for a hearing....
Nazem Kadri And Joe Thornton Get Mad, Get Thrown Out Of Faceoff Circle, Fight
The Leafs’ Nazem Kadri and Sharks’ Joe Thornton got chippy with each other about as fast as possible tonight—sniping at each other in the faceoff circle to the point of getting kicked out of the circle before dropping gloves to start fighting, all of two seconds into the game. ...
The Sharks Are In The Finals, Finally
Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau were the first two picks in the 1997 draft. They’ve played a couple thousand games in teal. They’ve both been captains, and both stripped of the “C” for perceived leadership failures and criticisms that for however good their Sharks were, they were never quite good e...
Holy Shit, That Joe Thornton Pass
The Sharks lead the postseason in plays that make their opponents’ fans exasperatedly say, “oh come the fuck on.” It’s a remarkably aesthetically pleasing brand of hockey they play, all speed and puck cycling and a preternatural awareness of their linemates’ positions only made possible by playing t...
Yeah, OK, I'm All About The Sharks
The NHL’s playoff bracket is a little bit broken when each conference’s best two teams are playing each other in the second round, but a nice side effect is that we’re getting close series—and through two games, they look close all around. That includes Sharks-Predators, even if San Jose is up 2-0. ...
How The Sharks' Power Play Will Bite You From Any Angle
If you had the entire NHL to draft from, you might not be able to construct a more logical top power-play unit than the one the Sharks can ice every night. Maybe not the “best”—third best in the NHL this year, though—but there’s not another that’s so well-defined, that offers such weapons from every...
Joe Thornton Shames Corey Crawford With Lovely Shootout Goal
The game-winning shootout goal in last night's Blackhawks-Sharks game was gorgeous, courtesy of San Jose's Joe Thornton. The captain completely worked goalie Corey Crawford for an easy goal, and the 2-1 shootout victory....