NHL Rank: Predicting the best 50 players for the 2019-20 season

SAN JOSE – Off of the ice, Joe Thornton is a notoriously chill dude. There isn’t a whole lot that phases the veteran center and future Hall of Famer, who appears to go through his non-hockey playing life with a remarkably even-keeled attitude.  We’re talking about the kind of guy that signs a one-year, $8 million contract sitting on a lawn mower. Just as the latest example. Thornton couldn’t help but admit on Sunday, though, that all of the interest he received as an unrestricted free agent knocked him for a loop. “There was a lot of interest, to be honest. I was kind of shocked that there was the interest that there was,� Thornton said. “It was crazy. Throughout the whole thing I talked to [GM]