Joe Thornton: Why was he traded in his prime?

[Jets4Life]

Ohhhhh, ERIC Belanger. I get it now. I was confused.

lol...

My exact thought. I was Googling "Steve Belanger" trying to find out who the hell he was."

 

[DaveG]

Ohhhhh, ERIC Belanger. I get it now. I was confused.

LMAO can't believe I did that.

Little in-joke from the Canes board that I let slip on here accidentally. One of the few downsides of working around beer all day.

 

[GreatGonzo]

Oh come on? Is San Jose going to get a pass for being a team full of chokers? They had all the talent in the world assembled on that team in the late 00's and they choked, who was the leader? Joe Thornton.

I get that you guys are fans of his but come on, Joe Thornton might be good at putting up points, but he's not one to win the team needed games or be a good leader. Just like a russian named Alexander Ovechkin.

San Jose got nobody else to blame but themselves for not being succesful. You don't win the cup on excuses.

Don't talk about things you clearly know nothing about.

San Jose was a top heavy team with bad depth, mediocre defense, and shaky goaltending. Thornton MADE the Sharks contenders, and that's the fault of building around a playmaker. Shut Joe down, the whole team suffers, and that's hardly Joes fault.

Crosby has Malkin
Toews has Kane/Keith
Bergeron had a handful of impactful players, but mostly Thomas

Who did Joe have?....

Sure San Jose has had some great teams and yes, they were contenders for a long time, but outside of 2009, they lost to better teams. 2014 was a choke job, but that LA team ended up winning it all...so how much of a choke was it?

Joe Thornton isn't a choker, he just takes the heat for his teams loss because he's the biggest name and most of his career in SJ, the driving force behind that team.

 

[Jets4Life]

Yet he somehow managed to have a higher points per game average in the playoffs over some players who people tend to consider to be "clutch" performers...

http://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/records/nhl-players-all-time-playoff-points-per-game-leaders.html

Thornton's 121st in overall points per game in the post season, a PPG of .769, 123 points in 160 playoff games.

That's a higher PPG than players like Hossa, Shanahan, Pavelski, Nieuwendyk, Mullen, Leach, Clark, Datsyuk, B. Richards, Lecavalier.

I guess the fact that teams win Cups, not players, still escapes select individuals.

Whith the exception of Pavelski, all of the players mentioned won Stanley Cups (assuming you man Bobby Clarke, not Wendel Clark).

The Capitals from 2008-17 are a lot different then...say...Marcel Dionne and the 80s Kings.

Why do you bother to use "select" when it's obvious many hockey fans think "choker" in regards to Ovechkin, even though he is one of the top two players in the NHL for the past decade. Like it or not, Championships mean something, fair or unfair. The fact that the Capitals have had all the parts in place for years to win the Stanley Cup, but never got by the second round, is not lost on people. Ovechkin may perform ok in the playoffs, but is far from a "clutch" player when the game is on the line. Crosby has done this not only in the NHL but the Olympics too.

I started a thread about it, at any rate. Enjoy:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?p=132898135&posted=1#post132898135

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

he shopped Phaneuf around the league and was shocked to find only two teams were interested in him (in terms of a trade, there were a handful of other clubs willing to dump a contract and essentially saddle the Flames with another even less appetizing problem.) The two clubs were the LA Kings and the Toronto Maple Leafs, but the Kings offer involved a player that Sutter was very wary of taking on (not sure who it was.)

Its definitely Jack Johnson, right? Its gotta be

 

[FerrisRox]

They mishandled Joe Juneau and gave him up to rent Al Iafrate for a short term.

To be fair, when they acquired Iafrate, they did not know it was going to be a short-term rental.

 

[FerrisRox]

Reportedly Belanger was similarly reviled in his time in Edmonton.

I remember hearing a story from a guy that was in that Oilers room at that time that Belanger was constantly complaining about his usage, his line mates, his time on ice, and would always say "just use me properly and it's 20-goals, money in the bank." He was endlessly frustrated that he, as a 20-goal man, was never used properly.

At no point in Eric Belanger's NHL career did he ever score 20-goals though, so his teammates found it hilarious that he would repeatedly refer to himself as a 20-goal guy that wasn't being used properly.

In 104 games as an Edmonton Oiler he scored four goals.

 

[FerrisRox]

Its definitely Jack Johnson, right? Its gotta be

Sorry, I was never told who the guy was, but that sounds like a decent guess.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

Sorry, I was never told who the guy was, but that sounds like a decent guess.

Everything lines up. Two defensemen (no need to throw in additional players to balance things out position wise) known for having 20$ body but a 5c head. Both are high picks, so the trade sounds reasonable on the sports talk circuit even though both coaches know they’re not star potential at the NHL level based on how they play up close.

Only thing is its a completely lateral move for both sides, the secret is out on both players (maybe not so much on Johnson, although everyone figured him out by 2010-2011ish), so I dont see what the trade is meant to accomplish besides shaking up the current state of things