So I woke up this morning to an unpleasant surprise. I found out that the Boston Bruins had just traded away their best player and team captain, Joe Thornton, to San Jose last night. I know hockey hasn't been very popular recently due to the lockout which cancelled all of last season, but I am one of the few who missed hockey and I was very happy to see it's return, rule changes and all. With the newly instituted salary cap, and new rules to make the game more exciting and high scoring, not to mention the elimination of tie-games, I had high expectations for this year, especially for my favorite team, the Boston Bruins. They made a few big signings and most importantly re-signed team captain Joe Thornton to a 3-year deal after much speculation of him wanting out of Boston and possibly signing with another team. Thornton, though , was committed to staying in Boston because he loved playing here...the city he's been in for all of his 8 years in the NHL. In those 8 years, he has become, in my opinion, one of the Top-10 players in the league, and at only age 26, he was only getting better.
Unfortunately, the Bruins season has not been meeting expectations. They are in dead last in their division and are 1-8-1 in their last 10 games, despite the fact that Thornton is doing well and currently tied for 11th in the league in scoring (9 goals and 24 assists). Obviously, the Bruins organization felt they needed to shake things up a bit, which I agree with wholeheartedly. But trading away their best player to San Jose, who has an even worse record than the Bruins by the way, for 3 random players, not one of which is a better player than Thornton. In fact, none of them were even the best player in San Jose. That distinction belongs to Patrick Marleau, who is tied for 51st in the league for scoring. I've always felt that if you're going to trade away your best player, then you should at least get the other's team best player or someone with comparable skills to replace him. The 3 guys that the Bruins got in return, Marco Sturm, Brad Stuart and Wayne Primeau are all good, young guys who can definitely help out the team, but without Thornton's leadership, not to mention dishing out an assist per game, the Bruins now lack a legitimate superstar to carry the team. Thornton just made everyone on the team better.
It seems as though the Bruins are heading in the wrong direction, but you can't really get worse than last place. So, maybe this will end up working out somehow. Maybe they will become a better team that isn't dependent on one guy to carry them. Only time will tell...but I just can't shake the feeling that if they wanted to trade away their best player, the Bruins could have gotten a little more in return for him. We'll see...
