{"id":28704,"date":"2018-05-08T16:22:20","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T20:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=28704"},"modified":"2018-05-08T16:22:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T20:22:20","slug":"san-jose-sharks-joe-thornton-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/05\/08\/san-jose-sharks-joe-thornton-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks Joe Thornton had ACL, MCL Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Gackle of Bay Area News Group\u00a0has\u00a0reported that centre\u00a0<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> dealt with ACL and MCL tears during the 2017-18 season. The tears were located in his right knee, which was the same injury as last year in his opposite knee.<\/p>\n<p>Thornton was out of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/sharks\/\" target=\"_self\">San Jose Sharks<\/a> lineup for their final 35 regular-season games, as well as their playoff run due to his knee injuries. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/w\/wardjo02.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joel\u00a0Ward<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>was also forced to miss the entire playoffs. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kaneev01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Evander Kane<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>also dealt with an\u00a0MCL injury and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/05\/07\/san-jose-sharks-evander-kane-injury\/\" target=\"_self\">shoulder separation<\/a> this season but did play throughout the playoffs.\u00a0Due to key\u00a0players\u00a0dealing not playing or dealing with injuries, the\u00a0Sharks would <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/05\/07\/vegas-golden-knights-western-conference-final\/\" target=\"_self\">lose in the second-round<\/a> to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/knights\/\" target=\"_self\">Vegas Golden Knights<\/a>.<\/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> Thornton says he had ACL + MCL tears in his right knee, the exact same injury he dealt with in his left knee last year<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Paul Gackle (@GackleReport) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GackleReport\/status\/993903602891550720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 8, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1><strong>Joe Thornton Injured<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>This season, Thornton scored 13 goals and 23 assists for36 points in 47 games. He also added 38 minutes in penalties. His possession numbers were 54.4 percent Corsi\u00a0and a relative Corsi of +3.4.<\/p>\n<p>Over his 20-year NHL career, Thornton has played for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/bruins\/\" target=\"_self\">Boston Bruins<\/a> and San Jose Sharks. He has put up 397 goals and 1,030 assists for 1,427 career points in 1,493 career games. Thornton ranks 16th all-time in point and is the highest active player on the list. He was originally drafted in the first overall of the 1997 NHL draft by the Boston Bruins.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What This Means for the Future<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The 38-year-old\u00a0enters the off-season an unrestricted free agent and has dealt with health problems over the last few seasons. Nearing the end of his NHL career, Thornton told the media that he would like to return to the Sharks next season. According to Gackle, to stay, Thornton would sign another one-year deal for less in order for the team to sign other free agents.<\/p>\n<p>San Jose has five free agents they need to re-sign heading into next season. The other four are Kane, Ward,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/f\/fehrer01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eric Fehr<\/a><\/strong>, and\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/hanseja01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jannik Hansen<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Joe Thornton also wants to remain w\/ <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SJSharks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#SJSharks<\/a>, said he\u2019d be willing to sign another one year deal and take a pay cut to help to the team sign other free agents: there\u2019s enough money to go around<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Paul Gackle (@GackleReport) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GackleReport\/status\/993903183708667904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 8, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>SAN JOSE, CA &#8211; DECEMBER 30: Joe Thornton #19 of the San Jose Sharks skates with the puck against the Philadelphia Flyers at SAP Center on December 30, 2016, in San Jose, California. (Photo by Rocky W. Widner\/NHL\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Gackle of Bay Area News Group\u00a0has\u00a0reported that centre\u00a0Joe Thornton dealt with ACL and MCL tears during the 2017-18 season. The tears were located in his right knee, which was the same injury as last year in his opposite knee. Thornton was out of the San Jose Sharks lineup for their final 35 regular-season games, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2556,"featured_media":5581,"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":[332,117],"class_list":["post-28704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sharks","category-news","tag-joe-thornton","tag-san-jose-sharks"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28704","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\/2556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}