For years now, it’s been repeated ad nauseum that Joe Thornton is a playoff choker. The source of this narrative is easy to find: a seven-game series as captain of the Boston Bruins in 2003-04 against the Montreal Canadiens, when Thornton failed to record a single point.
That was likely the beginning of the end of Thornton’s time in Boston, though many fail to mention that he was playing with broken ribs. Even if he did play poorly in that series, how long should it follow him?
Since the trade that sent him to San Jose, Thornton has played 97 playoff games, scoring 82 points. How does that stack up to his competition? Well his 0.85 points per game compares very well to Anze Kopitar’s 0.86, and Jonathan Toews’ 0.87.
Those two players are direct competitors to Thornton, and both are Stanley Cup winners, so you would think that by essentially equaling their playoff production Thornton would shake the playoff choker label. Especially when you consider Thornton’s even strength production is 1.8 points per 60 minutes, while Kopitar is also at 1.8 and Toews is 1.7.
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But Thornton still carries around this reputation.
Part of the reason it still follows him is that Thornton ranks fourth in the NHL in points per game in the regular season over that time at 1.07 (300-plus games), and just 18th in playoff scoring (30-plus games played). Kopitar’s production drops in the playoffs as well, from 0.9 to 0.86 points per game, and Toews stays the same. So because Thornton performs so much better in the regular season, his post-season contributions are judged much more harshly.
It’s not fair, but the expectations are clearly higher for Thornton than other superstar centres. That will continue this spring at the age of 36 after an 82-point season, his best since 2009-10.
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The question for Thornton now is whether he’s in a position to shrug off those preconceptions, and those close to him seem convinced that he is. He’s playing looser than at any other point in his career and he’s got some pretty high-end talent surrounding him.
Another factor is we now have more information to judge performance by than ever before, so we can look at how Thornton compares to those Western Conference superstars heading into the playoffs, specifically over the last two months of play.
We already know Thornton isn’t a shooter, so it’s not surprising that he’s not producing as many individual scoring chances as his competition, but Thornton is clearly ahead everywhere else. Likely the premier passer of the last generation in the NHL, Thornton is still feeding the slot more than anyone.
Overall Thornton also creates more scoring chances for his teammates, and most noticeably, is far and away the best forechecker of the bunch, recovering more loose pucks in the offensive zone than anyone in the NHL. One of the knocks on Thornton is his foot speed, yet he’s always first on the puck. Thornton is either faster than people think, or compensates for lack of speed with knowing where to be before the puck gets there. Either way, the result is Thornton has the puck on his stick more often than anyone in the NHL except for Patrick Kane.
Call me crazy, but I say Jumbo Joe silences a lot of critics this playoff season.
