On Thursday night, San Jose GM Doug Wilson fielded questions from season ticket holders, one of ’em being a request to clarify exactly how veteran C Joe Thornton was relived of the club’s captaincy during the last off-season. Wilson, careful to praise Thorton (“he cares about the game so much..he carries the weight of the team on his shoulders”), suggested this was an amicable decision (“I sat him down and said we need other players to step up and share this. Leadership group in this league is a shared thing, it’s not one guy. This says a lot about Joe. He got it.”), a version of events the latter took strong exception to, as the San Jose Mercury-News’ David Pollak reports :
“I think Doug just needs to shut his mouth,” Thornton said after his team’s morning practice. “I think that’s the bottom line.”
Thornton added: “All I’ve got to say is I’ve been here every day working hard. I haven’t taken a sabbatical. He just needs to stop lying, shut his mouth.”
Wilson declined requests for a response to Thornton’s comments, but the general manager told CSN Bay Area, “If (Thornton’s) got an issue, he knows exactly where I am, and I’ll be glad to talk to him about it. There’s zero issue here. I was asked a question at a season-ticket holder function, and my response was to do my job and be accountable to our season ticket holders and tell the truth.”