Thornton Traded to San Jose - The Retrospective

So my father and I were having one of our regular hockey discussions this evening, when the subject came to the Boston Bruins recent success. He noted that the Bruin's management must be feeling better about trading away Joe Thornton now that they are on top of the league. Now both of us are avid hockey fans, but try as we might, we were unable to recall who Boston received from the Sharks in exchange for Big Joe. So I went to the internet;

On Nov 30th, 2005
San Jose Sharks get:
C Joe Thornton

Boston Bruins get:
LW Marco Sturm
C Wayne Primeau
D Brad Stuart

So to determine if Boston has 'gained' from trading Thornton, we need to dig deeper.


Marco Sturm has been consistent for Boston and set a career high of 56 points in 2007-08.

Wayne Primeau only played 101 games for the Bruins before he was traded to the Calgary Flames. Primeau scored 29 points and posted a -25 during his time in Boston.

Brad Stuart only played 103 games, and put up 48 points before being traded to Calgary.
Now since this post is examining if Boston is performing so well as a direct result of the Thornton trade, we'll have to see who Boston received Primeau and Stuart.

On February 10th, 2007
Calgary Flames get:
D Brad Stuart
C Wayne Primeau

Boston Bruins get:
RW Chuck Kobasew
D Andrew Ference

Chuck Kobasew played in 83 games for the Bruins, and tallied 41 points during that time.

Andrew Ference has played 85 games with Boston, and scored 18 points for Boston.


Now for Joe Thornton's statistics;

Joe Thornton played in 222 games for San Jose, and put up an impressive 302 points (or 1.36 PPG) since joining the Sharks.Now lets look at this these stats combined;

So clearly Joe has blossomed in California, and although it's resulted in several players coming and going from Beantown, the numbers are comparable. Now I realize it has taken 5 guys to put up numbers close to a franchise player like Thornton but regardless, the Bruins have put together a solid team this season, and don't seem to be suffering as a result.

It does raise the question... what if Boston still had big Joe?