| I've voted a couple times, I'll likely stuff a bit more...
Ahhh, Joe Thornton. Being a Bruins fan, I get asked about the whole Joe Thornton thing a lot by my various Canadiens, Rangers, Red Wings, etc. fan friends. Many are surprised that I'm not at all bitter about the trade and that I'm not really overly crushed that they don't have Joe anymore. I'll be interested to see how Thornton's season plays out. As Bruins Nation painfully learned over the past several years, there are two key things to know about Jumbo Joe's game;
1) When he's angry, he's scary-good. I mean, really really really good. Fantastic. Get him to play mad, and he's a beast.
2) Unfortunately, Joe is rarely angry. Way too easy-going for his own good, very little of that internal spark that made guys like Cam Neely folk heroes in Boston (and that particular comparison was made frequently in Boston, and never to Joe's benefit. I was at Cam Neely's number retirement ceremony game, Joe actually got called out by a heckler during the part of the speech where they were talking about Cam's passion and fire). Joe is the epitome of "not a self-starter", he needs a coach riding his ass constantly and ****ing him off. He actually blossomed under Mike Keenan during Iron Mike's stay in Beantown, which makes sense given the universal rep Keenan has for rampant jackassery. Got him angry, got him playing hard.
After he got traded last season (and just, what, eight weeks or so after signing a long term contract?), that was the ultimate kick in the ass for him. He played with passion and fire and energy the rest of the season, a passion and fire he lacked in Boston. He was angry at the Bruins and he was gonna rub there noses in it. No way he would have had that same season if he were in Boston, so I can't really feel bad about it, I can't really go "oh man, they could have used those numbers in Boston", because he would not have put up those numbers in Boston.
So far this year, he's settling into his new digs, getting comfortable with San Jose, and the early returns at the 1/4 mark of the season: His shots per game is off from last season (something the Bs constantly harped on him about was shooting more). His points per game are below his rate from last year, even back down below where he was just for the Boston portion of his season. He's currently lined up for about a 90 point season, nothing to sneeze at but well off from his 125 points last season. His penalty minutes per game are also down, which could be good or bad, depending on where you choose to make the balance between "maturity" and "grit".
So we'll see. Maybe he'll light up again and go on a tear. Even if you get 90 points a year out of him, that's pretty damn good, it's always good to have a 90 point scorer on the roster. But it's not quite "all world" good, that's not MVP good. 17th in the league in scoring isn't quite where he ought to be. He's tied with the Bruins' off-season acquisition Marc Savard (who has played in two fewer games), in fact, so his scoring contribution has essentially been replaced. Plus his departure allowed Patrice Bergeron to increase his minutes and blossom. So in the grand scheme of things, I'm not too bummed about the big Joe trade. And there's my spiel on that!
-Ricardo
"2 minutes by yourself and...you feel shame, you know...and then you get free" | 
