{"id":89292,"date":"2020-10-15T13:53:52","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T17:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=89292"},"modified":"2020-10-15T13:53:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T17:53:52","slug":"joe-thornton-signs-with-hcdavos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/10\/15\/joe-thornton-signs-with-hcdavos\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Thornton Signs With HC Davos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/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 signed a contract to play in Switzerland for the moment. The deal is with HCDavos, a perennial contender in the nation&#8217;s National League. Thornton&#8217;s eventual destination for 2020-21 has been a popular rumour but his career will continue in Europe. Pierre LeBrun announced the move Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Joe Thornton expected to play Saturday with HCDavos <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/F2OyYe9MvG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/F2OyYe9MvG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PierreVLeBrun\/status\/1316716211938492418?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 15, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Joe Thornton Signs with HC Davos<\/h2>\n<p>Thornton remained a steady presence for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/sharks\/\" target=\"_self\">San Jose Sharks<\/a> in 2019-20. He contributed seven goals and 31 points in 70 games. That doesn&#8217;t seem like much but it&#8217;s admirable when you remember that it was his age-40 season. His staying power alone is worthy of praise. Additionally, while his scoring numbers dipped, his possession metrics remained strong. The veteran had a 52.7 Corsi For and 3.4 relative Corsi. He certainly seems like he has another season or two left in him.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/bruins\/\" target=\"_self\">Boston Bruins<\/a> drafted Thornton way back in the 1997 Draft. He would play for that franchise from 1997-98 through 2005-06 before heading to San Jose via trade in exchange for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/stuarbr02.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brad Stuart<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/primewa01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wayne Primeau<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/sturmma01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marco Sturm<\/a><\/strong>. Thornton has been an absolute rock for the Sharks since the trade. He&#8217;s been a two-time all-star since the trade and won both the Hart and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/rossar01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Art Ross<\/a> trophies for his work in 2005-06. He is simply one of the best to ever play with 1636 regular-season games, 420 goals and 1509 points. He&#8217;s also posted 31 goals and 133 points in 179 playoff games. On the international scene, Thornton has won gold metals for Canada at the World Junior&#8217;s (1997), the World Cup of Hockey (2004, 2016) and the Olympics (2010).\u00a0 There is very little the future Hall of Famer hasn&#8217;t done in hockey other than win a Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>Fans will be sad to see Thornton playing outside of North America, he hasn&#8217;t ruled out a return to the NHL once the 2020-21 schedule is announced.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Joe Thornton has joined HC Davos of the Swiss National League but hasn\u2019t closed the door on an NHL return once the 2020-21 season resumes.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Y8UnJHIM3R\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/Y8UnJHIM3R<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Sportsnet\/status\/1316745866326290434?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 15, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The 41-year-old free agent might look at this as just an opportunity to stay sharp before the NHL announces its 2020-21 season schedule. He will certainly be a fan-favourite overseas.<br \/>\n<a id=\"nm1o0RzUSXBSECqN1YWklA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/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:'nm1o0RzUSXBSECqN1YWklA',sig:'4u5TDWT412Qc2ZCUA5gBxSmEhya29udy55HMRgW0GsE=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'905829606',caption: true ,tld:'ca',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Thornton has signed a contract to play in Switzerland for the moment. The deal is with HCDavos, a perennial contender in the nation&#8217;s National League. Thornton&#8217;s eventual destination for 2020-21 has been a popular rumour but his career will continue in Europe. Pierre LeBrun announced the move Thursday morning. Joe Thornton expected to play [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":89297,"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":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4547,3271,34],"tags":[332,117],"class_list":["post-89292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-european-leagues","category-news","tag-joe-thornton","tag-san-jose-sharks"],"modified_by":"Connor Lapalme","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89292","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\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}