Joe Thornton picked up his 1,000th assist on an empty net. That part makes sense. He got his 999th assist on an unmanned net, too. In a year where Thornton hasn’t reached the heights of a point-per game season, the top line dominated the Jets last night and combined for two goals in a 3-2 victory.
Thornton and Pavelski led the Sharks at even strength with a +5 corsi differential despite only starting 25 percent of their shifts in the offensive zone. They, like everyone else on the Sharks, had no answer for the Joshua Morrissey and Jacob Trouba pairing but demolished the Tobias Enstrom-Dustin Byfuglien combo as the below chart from HockeyViz.