Joe Thornton

So the Sharks and Joe Thornton have agreed to a three year contract extension totaling $21million dollars. It's a great deal for "Big Joe" but I question the positives for San Jose.

Thornton has always put up spectacular regular season numbers. An 11 time 20 goal scorer, with two of those seasons were 30+. He has the ability to put 30-40 goals in for the sharks, but I think his main asset is his playmaking ability, with eight seasons with 50+ assists. Most of those seasons even surpassing 60 or more. If the season was only 82 games long and no playoffs, I would be the first to applaud this deal (you can see it coming I know), but it's not. Looking at his playoff stats you see a sharp decrease in production. The playoffs is usually a time where the star players take it up a notch, not shy away. Now I will be fair to Joe, and say that every early exit is not his fault. We can look at the subpar play of Nabokov as a main culprit as well, and he too suffers from terrific regular season numbers, but poor clutch performances. If you don't believe me, look at the playoffs the past 3-4 years, and his play in the Olympics.

But for a team that just name Thornton captain, and I suppose this is part of the motivation for the deal, one would suspect that they want more from him. Hopefully the "C" will motivate Thornton to get the team finally over the hump. This team routinely finishes atop their division and the conference at the end of game 82, but they've yet to win the ultimate prize. I won't use the term "bust" to describe Joe Thornton, as someone who wins both the Hart and Art Ross would certainly not be your typical idea of a bust, but again until the sharks are hoisting the cup I can only think of labeling "Big Joe" as an underachiever. Again to be fair, there are plenty of elite players who have never won a cup, but they all come with that stigma. I think the Sharks have to at least make the cup finals to finally shake some of their critics.