SAN JOSE, Calif. — Before training camp, the San Jose Sharks retreated to Lake Tahoe. No executives. No coaches. Just players – 22 of them, pretty much the whole team. They spent two days together sleeping in cabins, hiking in the woods, going out on the water, watching football, barbecuing. They built a bonfire.

“Ninety-nine percent was not hockey,” said center Logan Couture. “One percent was maybe hockey.”

NHL teams take bonding trips all the time. The Sharks once did military-style training. But the Sharks had never done anything like this before camp, and it followed a tumultuous few months.

The Sharks became the fourth team in NHL history to blow a 3-0 lead and lose a series when they fell to the Los Angeles Kings in the first round. General manager Doug Wilson used the word “rebuild,” called the Sharks a “tomorrow team” and revealed players told him they felt more like co-workers than teammates. Coach Todd McLellan took the ‘C’ from Joe Thornton and an ‘A’ from Patrick Marleau, leaving the captaincy open entering camp.

It might not be as bad as it looks. The Sharks were one of the best teams in the league in the regular season, and a 3-0 lead isn’t what it used to be. Wilson doesn’t want to lower expectations; he wants to keep winning as he transitions to a younger roster. Players deny there is a rift in the dressing room, and McLellan has said the opening of the captaincy is not an indictment of Thornton and Marleau. It is a challenge to others players to assume more leadership. If they can speak up after the season to the GM, they can speak up during the season to each other.

View photos Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau lost the letters on their sweaters, but both vets want to remain in San Jose. (Getty) More

Wilson signed Thornton and Marleau to three-year extensions in January. He gave them no-movement clauses; they took at least a little less than they could have received on the open market (Thornton $6.75 million per season, Marleau $6.67 million per). He has not asked them to waive their no-movement clauses and will not explore a trade unless they request it; they haven’t asked to go for the same reasons they wanted to stay in the first place.

“I still believe in this team, ultimately,” Thornton said. “If I didn’t, I think … You know, that’s the easy way out, just pack your bag and leave. I still believe this team can do some things.”

“I still think we have a good group of guys in here,” said Marleau, entering his 17th season in San Jose. “I’ve made a commitment here to this team, and I’d like to see it through. I have a lot of skin in the game being here so many years. I want to succeed here.”

But these guys needed to get away and have some fun. They needed to face what happened and do something about it themselves. Why did they blow that 3-0 lead? Why did guys tell Wilson what they did? How can they come together better? What kind of team do they want to be?

“It’s no different than any office,” said winger Adam Burish, who helped organize the Lake Tahoe retreat along with defenseman Jason Demers. “When you’re not around your boss anymore, you can kind of open up and be yourself. For us, that was kind of the idea. Let’s do something as a group. Let’s be together as a group. …

“Now you start Day 1, and there’s nobody tiptoeing. If you’re a first-year guy or you’re Joe Pavelski, everybody’s on the same page.”

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It wasn’t just that the Sharks blew that 3-0 lead. It was how they blew it. They lost keystone defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic in Game 5, and they flip-flopped goalies in Games 6 and 7. But that doesn’t explain why players strayed from the structure when adversity struck, trying to do too much themselves, not trusting their teammates to do their jobs. The Sharks gave up odd-man rush after odd-man rush.

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