San Jose Sharks: When will Joe Thornton re-sign with them?

Joe Thornton loves the San Jose Sharks and the feeling is mutual. So why is he still unsigned two weeks into free agency?

It seems that with every year the Stanley Cup Playoffs end, all the talk out of the San Jose Sharks camp revolves around Joe Thornton. Will this be the year Jumbo Joe finally wins his first Stanley Cup?  If he doesn’t do it this year, will he retire? And the story ends the same way each year – with the Sharks falling short of hockey’s ultimate prize.

Just like last summer (and the previous one before that), Thornton finds himself as an unrestricted free agent after a one-year deal. Unlike other aging veterans who went chasing after Stanley Cups, such as Daniel Alfredsson of the Ottawa Senators, the thought of Thornton leaving San Jose seems impossible.

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He loves California and the San Jose area, so if there was mutual interest between the two sides, a deal should be done rather quickly. Still two weeks into free agency, Thornton remains unsigned.

Going two weeks without a contract might not seem like much, but there are a lot less outlying factors surrounding Thornton than other big-name free agents. He’s an aging franchise cornerstone who, even if he wanted to leave, most likely wouldn’t attract that much attention.

Any market for aging vets could have possibly been hurt by former Sharks teammate Patrick Marleau’s rather unsuccessful tenure with the Toronto Maple Leafs and his subsequent buyout.

At his advanced age, Thornton knows he can’t command a lot of money. If a return to San Jose is in the cards, he’d likely have to take a pay cut from the $5 million salary he received last season.

The Sharks find themselves in a bit of a cap bind, however, with just under $5 million in cap space after signing Erik Karlsson to his legendary contract extension. Space may be tight, but not tight enough to let their franchise’s most beloved player walk either.

Thornton might not be the Art Ross and Hart Trophy winner he once was, but can still put up respectable numbers. He finished his age 40 campaign with 51 regular-season points and 10 points during the Sharks run to the Western Conference Final.

In terms of career longevity with a team and continued production, the best modern-day comparison for Thornton would be former Arizona Coyotes player and captain Shane Doan. Doan led the Coyotes in every imaginable category, as well as being one the few bright spots on a struggling franchise, prior to his 2017 retirement.

Just like Thornton, the thought of Doan and the Coyotes parting ways seemed impossible, until the team announced they wouldn’t extend a contract offer to him in the 2017 off-season.

After that, Doan called it a career. The Coyotes not wanting him back convinced him to retire, and perhaps Thornton’s in the same mindset. But the difference is the Sharks have yet to make it clear they have no intentions of offering a contract. In fact, they’ve been surprisingly quiet on the subject. That’s what makes the whole Thornton free agency issue so interesting.

Fortunately for him, no news seems to be good news coming out of the San Jose Sharks camp. Until the Sharks say they don’t want Thornton back, it can be assumed they want the storied career to continue in a Sharks jersey. Thornton re-signing in San Jose is not a question of if, just a question of when.