SAN JOSE — Former Sharks captain Joe Thornton said Wednesday that he and his teammates went to Lake Tahoe for a bonding session last weekend to address whatever divide that might have developed in the locker room at the end of last season.

“We all have come together,” said Thornton, who lost the captaincy last month as part of general manager Doug Wilson’s call for a change in the team hierarchy and culture.

Thornton acknowledged that conversations did need to take place following the aftermath of San Jose’s historic playoff collapse against the Los Angeles Kings. In the days that followed, Wilson said players told him they felt like “co-workers, not teammates,” bringing the leadership into question.

“We’ve always had a good group of guys,” Thornton said, “but the way we lost last year, everybody was kind of bitter at the end of the year. That’s just competitors being upset when you lose like that.”

Coach Todd McLellan has said that the next captain and assistant captains will be chosen based on how players conduct themselves after training camp opens Thursday with a team meeting. He even left open the possibility that Thornton could succeed himself.

But whoever is chosen, Thornton said, will have the backing of all the players — himself included.

“We’re going to have to have 23 captains on the team this year. It doesn’t matter who has it or who doesn’t have it. We all have to come together and be leaders,” Thornton said. “It’s up to Todd and Doug who they pick and we’ll end up supporting whoever they choose as captain.”

Thornton, however, said he did not plan to change the way he conducts himself around the locker room.

“You’ve just got to compete hard every day and I’ve always done that,” Thornton said. “I’m not changing a thing.”

Thornton played down the suggestion by associate coach Larry Robinson in a Montreal radio interview that indicated part of the problem might have been the way some players reacted to Thornton’s sense of humor.

“I don’t know, Pav, do I have a good sense of humor?” he asked teammate Joe Pavelski, who was sitting at his locker stall across the room after one of the team’s unofficial skates. Pavelski smiled.

For more on the Sharks, see David Pollak’s Working the Corners blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/sharks.