Oh Captain My Lack Of A Captain: Thornton, Marleau, Pavelski get 'A's
Well that was anticlimactic.
Less than a month after being stripped of the captaincy, Joe Thornton got a letter sewn back onto his jersey today as he, Patrick Marleau (who was stripped of the alternate captaincy himself last month only to get it back) and Joe Pavelski are currently warming up for the season opener on Staples Center ice with 'A's on their respective sweaters. Marc-Edouard Vlasic will also rotate in as an alternate captain at times this season.
So the Sharks enter the year without an official captain but also without any reasonable explanation for why the entire charade of professing a "clean slate" approach to their leadership core was necessary, unless it really was a last-ditch effort to get Thornton and Marleau to waive their no-movement clauses that obviously, and mercifully, failed. There really isn't much of a difference between what the team eventually decided to do and what quietly transferring the 'A' from Dan Boyle's jersey onto Joe Pavelski's would have accomplished but I suppose the narrative will be that this provided the kick in the pants that 17-year NHL veterans somehow needed.
At any rate, the drama surrounding the Sharks' captaincy appears over for now and the team can finally move on to more important things like playing hockey games.