Sharks stay salty, but Kadri beef now in 'rear-view mirror'

There are few legitimate beefs in the NHL, but the discord between Joe Thornton, the Sharks and Maple Leafs centre Nazem Kadri still lingers.

And remains totally strange and probably misplaced.

Many months after Thornton lost a portion of his beard in a fight with Kadri, the Sharks made the Leafs centre a wanted man in the club’s lone visit to San Jose a few weeks back. Aiming to exact revenge for the disrespect, the sidetracked Sharks confronted Kadri on three occasions — which didn’t amount to anything more than the Sharks serving up the power play that helped set the wheels in motion for a Toronto win.

Needing wins themselves, you would assume that common sense will prevail and the Sharks won’t let their grudge against Kadri once again backfire Wednesday night in Toronto. Not only do the Leafs rank fourth in total goals, but they will welcome back their best player and greatest weapon with the man advantage with Auston Matthews’ return.

Still, Kadri remains deep in their heads.

Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said this before their meeting again Wednesday.

“I love Naz. I drafted him, we won an OHL championship together. I love him, I love how he plays. I think with Joe Thornton, all I would say is, I hope when Naz is 38 and playing on reconstructed knees and had the career Joe has had that the next generation of player gives Naz the amount of respect that he deserves and has earned. That’s a lesson.”

Uh, okay.

It’s possible that Thornton felt disrespected prior to their Jan. 4 encounter, but a quick review of the tape from that confrontation doesn’t immediately reveal obvious disrespect.

In fact, it’s pretty clear that Thornton was not only a willing participant, but the aggressor before the two agreed to exchange punches and tugs of the sweater at the drop of the puck.

We all remember how that went:

I suppose it’s possible that the Sharks believe that Kadri yanked on Thornton’s famously-thick beard on purpose. But if they’re being honest with themselves, they would surely be able to understand that given its length, Thornton’s beard overlaps the target of the non-punching hand in any fight: the front of the sweater.

DeBoer did add in his scrum that the beef is in the “rear-view mirror,” so we probably shouldn’t expect to see any vigilantes in teal Wednesday night. The right call, of course.

Thornton, though, left the door open for hostilities.

“We’ll see what happens tonight, too. It’s a hockey game, you never know what can happen.”

Let’s just not see any clumps of hair hit the ice, fellas. That was gross.

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