Hockey players are known for their toughness, but Sharks’ center Joe Thornton may have raised the bar for the rest of the NHL during his team’s first-round playoff series loss. Coach Peter DeBoer said Thornton played against the Edmonton Oilers with torn medial colateral and anterior cruciate ligaments in his left knee. Thornton missed the final three games of the regular season and the first two games of San Jose’s first-round series against Edmonton after injuring his knee at Vancouver on April 2.