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Thornton brushes off Doughty’s ‘you could see it in their eyes’ remark

Los Angeles v San Jose Sharks

Los Angeles v San Jose Sharks

NHLI via Getty Images

During the Stanley Cup Final, Drew Doughty caused a bit of a stir when he said the following about L.A.'s historic comeback against the Sharks:

“Once we won that first game in the San Jose series, we kind of had a feeling we were going to come back and win that series, and you could see it in their eyes and their team and their captains and leaders that they were worried about us coming back.”

On Tuesday, former Sharks captain Joe Thornton was asked what he thought of those remarks.

Short answer? Not much.

“To be honest, I’ve never really cared if people have compliments or jabs,” he said, per LA Kings Insider. “It doesn’t change my mindset, you just go out and play.

“You don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff.”

While Thornton didn’t think much about Doughty’s comments, other people certainly did -- especially this summer, when the Sharks overhauled their leadership group by stripping Thornton of his “C” and Patrick Marleau of his “A” (San Jose’s other alternate captain, Dan Boyle, had his negotiating rights traded to the Islanders.)

“We’re going to re-establish the hierarchy and the culture in this organization,” San Jose head coach Todd McLellan said of the decision, per CSN Bay Area.

As such, the Sharks went into this preseason without any captains -- “cleaning the slate,” is how McLellan described it -- and on Tuesday, they’ll face L.A. for the first time since last spring’s epic collapse.

And there’s still no captain in place.