{"id":28275,"date":"2018-05-02T18:20:14","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T22:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=28275"},"modified":"2018-05-02T18:20:14","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T22:20:14","slug":"joe-thornton-takes-line-rushes-for-san-jose-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/05\/02\/joe-thornton-takes-line-rushes-for-san-jose-sharks\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Thornton Takes Line Rushes for San Jose Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/sharks\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Jose Sharks<\/a> are locked in a tight Western Conference semifinal series with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/knights\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vegas Golden Knights<\/a>. San Jose trails the expansion club two games to one in the best-of-seven series. Sharks&#8217; forward <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/t\/thornjo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Thornton<\/a><\/strong> has been missing from the lineup for all of the postseason\u00a0thus far.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Sharks could get a big boost if the veteran centre returns to the lineup. Thornton was taking line rushes during morning practice. All signs point to Thornton playing his first game since Jan. 23.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SJSharks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#SJSharks<\/a> Joe Thornton on top line in rushes at am skate<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Paul Gackle (@GackleReport) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GackleReport\/status\/991731491565535232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 2, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Joe Thornton Practices with Sharks<\/h2>\n<p>Thornton has suffered from knee problems for the last couple of seasons, including a couple of ligament tears in his left knee. However, the problem was in his right knee this time around.<\/p>\n<p>Thornton has only played in 47 games this season scoring 13 goals with 23 assists for 46 points. He\u2019s also added 38 penalty minutes. Thornton has a Corsi for of 54.4 percent and a relative Corsi of 3.4.<\/p>\n<p>Over his 13-year career, Thornton has scored 397 goals and dished out 1,030 assists for 1,427 points. He has played for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/bruins\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Boston Bruins<\/a> and the Sharks. The Boston Bruins drafted Thornton first overall in the 1997 NHL draft.<\/p>\n<p>Sharks head coach <strong>Peter DeBoer<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2018\/05\/02\/sharks-shuffle-lineup-joe-thornton-will-likely-play\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">remained mum on the status<\/a> of Thornton and defenseman <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/ryanjo02.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joakim Ryan<\/a><\/strong>. He said they were game-time decisions. Thornton said that nothing has changed in his playing status. That said it could be a smokescreen.<\/p>\n<h2>What It Means For the Future<\/h2>\n<p>Thornton\u2019s return would be huge for the Sharks. He\u2019s one of the better players in the league at winning face-offs and an outstanding passer. He\u2019s two years removed from a great postseason where he scored three goals and handed out 18 assists as San Jose reached the Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n<p>Thornton also brings a world of playoff experience to the Sharks, who need a victory to even up the series. Puck drops for game four tonight at 7 pm.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"6Cz1VDFCSSRvcc8JQgR9-g\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/905829606\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'6Cz1VDFCSSRvcc8JQgR9-g',sig:'OOUEdBf7KHua5FEa5JYT5o5G4y97qZ2qlvij6GsYXC8=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'905829606',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The San Jose Sharks are locked in a tight Western Conference semifinal series with the Vegas Golden Knights. San Jose trails the expansion club two games to one in the best-of-seven series. Sharks&#8217; forward Joe Thornton has been missing from the lineup for all of the postseason\u00a0thus far. However, the Sharks could get a big [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":28282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,34],"tags":[3186,2334,332,578,117,1109,961],"class_list":["post-28275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sharks","category-news","tag-2018-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-joakim-ryan","tag-joe-thornton","tag-peter-deboer","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"modified_by":"Daniel Brown, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}