"Once the new year kind of hit, my health was great," Thornton said. "I started to get some strength back in my leg and started to play some good hockey in the last month or so. So real excited for this."
Thornton is the leading active scorer in the NHL and 14th in history with 1,478 points. He's the leading active playmaker in the League and eighth in history with 1,065 assists.
Yet he accepts a third-line role at this stage of his career. He averaged 15:33 of ice time in the regular season, almost three minutes less than last season and the lowest since he averaged 15:21 with the Boston Bruins in 1998-99, when he was 19 and in his second NHL season.
That gives the Sharks a one-two-three punch down the middle of Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl and Joe Thornton. That makes the third-line wingers better, that makes the Sharks deeper, and that creates matchup problems for the opposition.
"I've had great players at the end of their career," DeBoer said. "It hasn't been easy transitioning to less minutes or less starts or less of a role. And he's been fantastic.
"He's all about the team, and it's not lip service and it's not depending on the day or how he's feeling. It's every day. He lives it. It's a pleasure to work with a guy like that, because it's real and we've never had one issue about what his role's going to be as long as we're moving the team towards winning."
Thornton turns 40 on July 2. He's on a one-year contract. Who knows how many playoff runs he has left?
"I've taken an approach of day by day for the last five or six years," Thornton said. "It's a healthy way to live for me. Never take anything for granted. And I think the last couple years with some injuries, it's a good way to have an outlook on hockey. Just live it one day at a time."
Soak it in.
"You want to go out there and play for guys that have done it forever," Braun said. "This is a big run for him, and guys know that, that we've got to … It's a big run for all of us. You never know if you'll get a shot again. Just to have that extra motivation is great."