It was just five years ago that B’s fans gathered around their television sets, radios, or refreshed their internet page to see if they were reading the truth.
Joe Thornton, the Bruins’ captain and leading scorer whom the club drafted with the first overall pick of the 1997 Draft, had been traded out to San Jose to join the Sharks in exchange for
Wayne Primeau,
Brad Stuart, and
Marco Sturm.
Time flies.
But while Boston may be a distant memory for Thornton, who finished his debut (half)-season in San Jose by capturing the Art Ross Trophy while the B’s continued to sputter, ultimately finishing the season 13th in the Eastern Conference, just what did this trade cause?
Simply put, the change the Boston organization needed.
Finishing the year with just 21 wins in the 56 games played with Thornton out of town, Boston’s dismal second-half record proved to be enough to secure them with the fifth overall draft pick in the 2006 NHL Draft.
Selecting University of Minnesota talent
Phil Kessel with the pick, the Bruins began their search for a new image with the signings of top-tier free-agents
Zdeno Chara and
Marc Savard to go along with the core in Boston seemingly built around budding star
Patrice Bergeron with a solid supporting cast that featured
Glen Murray and current Bruins goaltender
Tim Thomas.
However, as 2006-07 provided another year of heartbreak, with the B’s failing to be anything more than a footnote of yesteryear in the new NHL, then-novice general manager
Peter Chiarelli opted to move two-thirds of the Thornton trade return pieces, sending both Primeau and Stuart packing to Calgary in return for hard-nosed
Chuck Kobasew and experience defensemen
Andrew Ference.
As coaching changes would come in 2007-08 with the defensive-minded
Claude Julien stepping in after a one season long disaster with
Dave Lewis at the helm, the B’s saw Sturm prove his worth--leading the team in goals--en route to the Bruins’ first post-lockout trip to the playoffs, only to be ultimately ousted by the Montreal Canadiens in seven games.
Reaching the height of their success and finishing with their best regular season record in nearly 40 years, the B’s tasted first round playoff success for the first time in ten years before being axed by the ‘Canes in the second round, but nobody was frowning. In just their third full-year after the Thornton exile put the wheels in motion, the Bruins' rebuilding appeared nearly complete.
With a core in place moving towards 2009-10, the B's cut ties with an indirect tie to the Thornton trade by sending Kobasew to Minnesota in exchange for a draft pick, negotiation rights to
Alex Fallstrom, and gritty fringe-NHLer
Craig Weller while Ference signed a three-year extension in the Hub.
As Weller would wind up suiting up for a grand total of zero games at the NHL level for Boston, his impact would be made when the B's moved him (along with
Byron Bitz and a 2nd rounder) for Florida blue-liner
Dennis Seidenberg.
Bringing in a player loaded with intangibles along with an ability to create some offense from the point, Seidenberg would agree to a four-year extension with the B's as the organization headed towards the 2010-11 season with high hopes.
But in the entire scheme of the things, just what makes the Thornton trade so pivotal to the B's even five years later?
During that time of despair where the B's, led by an energetic and youthful Bergeron, and a revolving door of goaltenders ultimately ending with the first of what-would-become two contract-extensions for Thomas, failed to entertain or even see their highlights crack the ten o'clock news, the Bruins struggled enough to land Kessel.
Playing just three seasons in Boston, including a finale that saw the sniper from Wisconsin pot 36 beauties for the 2008-09 B's, an eventual trade to Toronto and subsequent miserable season from the Maple Leafs the following year allowed the Bruins to draft none other than
Tyler Seguin along with
Jared Knight and a first round pick in 2011.
Considered a top-tier talent of tomorrow loaded with the skill-set to make him an elite player, Seguin has arrived to Boston much like the top-tier prospect the B's drafted back in 1997 by the nickname of Jumbo Joe.
And while the addition of Seguin to the B's future has brought as many Cups to Boston as Thornton has to both Boston and San Jose, there's some comfort and hope in the Hub gained from knowing that the time spent wallowing in the nearly-empty confines of the TD Garden back in 2006 didn't go for naught.
After all, at the end of the day, the Thornton trade and eventual Seguin introduction has led to the hopes of a new budding star capable of making Cup dreams a reality for Boston for the next 20 years.
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