from Kevin Kurz of CSNBayArea,

There have been few players in the offseason NHL headlines more than Joe Thornton, who was first the subject of rampant trade rumors and later stripped of the club’s captaincy after four seasons when management made it clear there was an issue in the dressing room that reared its head in the playoff debacle against Los Angeles. Don’t expect the attention surrounding Thornton to die down any time soon, either, as the Sharks will attempt to fix the self-identified problem with essentially the same group.

Whether than can be done is debatable, and it’s not a reach to suggest that the fate of the Sharks’ 2014-15 season hinges on how Thornton adjusts to a role change both on and off the ice. Sharks associate coach Larry Robinson suggested in an interview earlier this summer that not everyone in the dressing room was receptive to the affable Thornton’s brand of humor, so maybe easing off a bit in that department is a good place for him to start.

It’s wholly unfair to blame Thornton alone the Sharks’ dressing room problems, though.

Why didn’t the younger players that had an issue with his approach go either to him, or the head coach, or the general manager to relay that there was a problem? The Sharks want to turn the team over to the younger core of Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, but the fact that none of those players (or others) were able to repair the rift doesn’t exactly reflect positively upon them, either.

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