San Jose Sharks' Joe Thornton Right to Tell GM Doug Wilson to 'Shut His Mouth'

On Thursday, San Jose Sharks general manager Doug Wilson mentioned that star forward Joe Thornton sometimes lashes out at others. On Friday, Thornton proved him right, expressing in no uncertain terms that the GM’s comments would be better kept to himself.

Wilson’s initial comments as well as Thornton’s response were both reported by David Pollak, who covers the Sharks for the San Jose Mercury News. Wilson’s description of Thornton came in a meeting with season-ticket holders in which he defended San Jose’s decision to strip the veteran centre of his captaincy:   

"

He cares about the game so much. The reason we took the 'C' off him… Joe carries the weight of the team on his shoulders, and he's got such a big heart that when stress comes on him, he lashes out at people and it kind of impacts them. The pressure and stress, I felt, was getting to Joe and I sat him down and said we need other players to step up and share this. He got it. He didn't like it, but he got it and he understood it.

"

To which Thornton reportedly replied that “Doug needs to shut his mouth.”

Wilson’s comment was long, nuanced and in a lot of ways not terribly critical of the player. Thornton’s reported response was short and rude. So it’s perhaps a little surprising that the blunt hockey player is more in the right than the loquacious executive.

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Wilson has a lot of competing interests to manage as general manager, and one of those interests is on the business side, engaging with the team’s primary backers and getting buy-in and support. He’s not the first executive to say something ill-advised to season-ticket holders, who as a rule deserve some candor from the team they support so ardently. So it’s understandable that he would attempt to explain the team’s inner workings to that group, particularly in a way that he felt didn’t hang Thornton out to dry.

But Wilson’s primary obligation to everyone—season-ticket holders, ownership, his players—is to help his team win games. It’s hard to see how shining a spotlight on Thornton’s failings as team captain does that.

It’s also worth remembering that this comes at a time when the Sharks are in a life-and-death struggle for one of the final playoff spots in the West. San Jose is three points back of Los Angeles and Calgary, four points back of Vancouver and five points back of Minnesota and have all of 14 games left on the schedule to make up the gap. This is emphatically not the time to re-hash why Thornton was judged as such a poor leader that taking away his "C" was warranted.

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It’s common to see canny executives draw attention away from their teams in critical moments, to change the story from their club’s problems to anything else. It’s a standard weapon in Brian Burke’s arsenal going back years, with his attack on officiating in the 2002 playoffs probably the most memorable example. It’s also what Wayne Gretzky did in the 2002 Olympics after a disappointing preliminary-round performance by the Canadian entry; coverage shifted dramatically from Canada’s poor play to Gretzky’s “everyone hates Canada” speech.

The facts may or may not have been on the side of Burke and Gretzky, but that matters less than the cover that their comments bought for their respective teams. Wilson would have done well to take a page out of their book. Failing that, he could have dodged the question, leaving last summer’s decision to make a leadership change where it belongs—last summer.     

Instead, Wilson gave the answer he did, and the question of the Sharks’ internal leadership and ability to handle themselves in the clutch is once again front and centre. It’s bad message discipline. Most kids have been told that if they don’t have something nice to say they shouldn’t say anything at all. There’s a similar rule for people in public leadership positions: If you don’t have something helpful to say, don’t say anything at all.

Thornton’s right. Doug Wilson isn’t helping, which means he should probably stop talking.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.