SAN JOSE — Joe Thornton took his normal spot among the forward lines on the first day of Sharks training camp Friday at the team’s practice facility — at center ice with Joe Pavelski on his right side and now Evander Kane on his left.

He said he feels back to normal, too, adding team doctors gave him a clean bill of health the day before, eight months after he had his second major reconstructive knee surgery in as many years.

“I feel good,” Thornton said. “Everything’s healthy, 100 percent, ready to go.”

Thornton, 39, is in a much better position health-wise than he was at the start of last season’s training camp, when he came back to practice only five months after having surgery to repair the anterior cruciate and the medial collateral ligaments in his left knee. He suffered the exact same injuries in January of this year, but on his right knee.

“Night and day,” Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said. “And that’s good. It’s just time. But if you ask me where he is today compared to a year ago, his first day of camp, there’s no comparison to that. We’ve got to be cautiously optimistic because he’s had two surgeries, but he looks real good.” Get Sharks news in your inbox. Sign up now for the free Sharks Report newsletter.

“I was close at the end of last year to joining the fellas (in the playoffs) and to be back and healthy, it’s a really good feeling,” Thornton said. “I’ve had a long time for rehab and got checked out yesterday and they said, ‘ready to go.’ So, it’s a good feeling to have.”

Thornton had 10 points through his first 19 games to start the 2017-18 season, as the Sharks got off to a 10-8-1 start. But he was playing his most productive hockey in the seven games before his injury, recording nine points from Jan.13-23. The Sharks were 5-1-1 in those games.

Friday was the first opportunity for Thornton to go through a full practice with Kane, who the Sharks signed to a seven-year extension in May.

“For me being a passer and to have the luxury of passing to two goal scorers, it’s something that you enjoy,” Thornton said. “You look forward to coming to the rink because you know you have two finishers on your line. We’ll see how it goes and we’ll play it by ear every day.”

Thornton looked smooth, going through drills during the 6-minute session without any restrictions.

“I don’t think he’s B.S.-ing,” Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said when told Thornton said he was 100 percent earlier. “I think he’s had a good recovery timetable, he’s been able to do it at his own pace without rushing it. I thought he looked really good today.” Related Articles Goalie assist: How Evgeni Nabokov guided both Anton Khudobin, Andrei Vasilevskiy

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Although the Sharks are still clearly counting on Thornton’s line and the second line of Logan Couture, Timo Meier and Tomas Hertl to provide a bulk of the offense from the forward group, there should be less of a reliance on them to produce with the acquisition Thursday of Erik Karlsson, adding to an already stacked blue line with Brent Burns, Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Justin Braun.

“We’ve got arguably one of the greatest of all time with Burnzie, now you put another one of the greatest of all time,” with Karlsson, Thornton said. “We’re going to have a lot of offense. We just have to remember that defense is going to win us games and we have to take care of our end first.”

For the projected third and fourth lines, the morning session featured Antti Suomela centering a line with Joonas Donskoi and Kevin Labanc. In the afternoon session, Dylan Gambrell played in the middle between Barclay Goodrow and Marcus Sorensen.