Sabres agree to terms with Tage Thompson on seven-year, $50 million contract

The club announced Tuesday that it agreed to terms with Thompson to a seven-year contract worth $50 million, retaining the 6-foot-7 forward through the 2029-30 season. The deal, which begins in 2023-24, carries a $7.142 million average annual value, which is second highest on the team by Thompson’s linemate, Jeff Skinner.

It ensures Thompson doesn’t reach restricted free agency in the summer of 2023 and rewards him for leading the Sabres in goals and points (68) while averaging a career-high 17:53 of ice time across 78 games. He centered the Sabres’ top line after moving to the position in training camp and his 24 goals after Feb. 1 were tied for fifth in the NHL.

Thompson’s right-handed shot, playmaking atop the lineup and steady defensive play down the middle of the ice helped the Sabres amass the 13th-most points in the league over the final two months of the season.

The contract could prove to be a bargain for the Sabres, who are betting that Thompson will repeat and build upon last season. And while there’s always risk paying a forward with a limited track record of production, the deal might be below market value for a young center who has already proven he can score more than 35 goals.

“This is a place I want to be at for a very long time,” Thompson, who would have been eligible for unrestricted free agency in 2024, told reporters in May. “I want to be a guy that helps this team win and make the playoffs and win a Stanley Cup, and obviously, those are all just words and you’ve got to put that into action.

“I’m excited to be a guy that’s a Buffalo Sabre, and I think we’ve got a lot of guys in the room that feel the same way about our team as I do.

Across Thompson’s first 145 games in the NHL between 2017-21, he totaled only 18 goals and 35 points while learning how to earn time and space with the puck as a winger. Everything changed for Thompson and the Sabres with a phone call last summer.

Thompson was in Arizona preparing for his first training camp under Granato when the Sabres’ coach called. At the time, Thompson was determined to prove he belonged in the NHL. Acquired by former General Manager Jason Botterill in the Ryan O’Reilly trade, Thompson was often a healthy scratch under former coach Ralph Krueger and, like current Sabres Casey Mittelstadt and Rasmus Asplund, ended up on the taxi squad during the abbreviated 2020-21 season.

Thompson’s talent always flashed in practice, like it did during his games with the American Hockey League’s Rochester Americans and, further back, when he played under Granato at the USA Hockey National Team Development Program. It just hadn’t translated to NHL games yet.

Granato predicted that with opportunity and confidence, Thompson had the potential to be dynamic. The decision to move him to center changed the Sabres’ short- and long-term outlook. In addition to the goal scoring, he proved he can be the first-line playmaker the club needs. His most frequent linemate, Skinner, totaled 33 goals, his highest output since 2018-19.

“Tommer was the guy that, we saw it every day in practice,” Sabres winger Kyle Okposo said. “Every day in practice, it was like, ‘This guy is unbelievable. He’s the best player on the ice.’ And for whatever reason in the games, like, he just didn’t have the confidence, or it just wasn’t translating.

“And now, you see it like we’ve seen it for years. And just the way that he makes moves, he protects the puck, his ability to make his linemates better – that’s something that, if you’re a (top-line center) like he was this year, that’s a huge component to it. And he made his linemates better this year.”

Over the phone, Granato delivered the news. Thompson was moving to center, the position he played before he was drafted by the St. Louis Blues with the No. 26 pick in the 2016 NHL Draft. Quietly, Thompson got to work and arrived at a training camp where all the outside talk was about who wasn’t there: the Sabres’ former captain, Jack Eichel.

Mittelstadt was the star of camp, seizing the top-line center role while delivering the most consistent performance in practices and preseason games. However, Thompson showed immediate flashes at center with his speed down the middle of the ice. At center, he was finding the time and space in the offensive zone that was difficult to come by when he was limited to the wing.

And when Mittelstadt was sidelined with an injury that occurred early in the season opener, Thompson took faceoffs as the top-line center and never looked back. His emergence began in November with 12 points in 14 games. The production continued, despite the Sabres enduring a Covid-19 outbreak that left their roster shorthanded.

Thompson became a legitimate All-Star candidate and his production during the first half of the season earned him a spot on the league’s Last Men In ballot for the Atlantic Division. He wasn’t chosen but his play continued during the second half.

Over the final 38 games of the season, Thompson had 24 goals and 39 points while averaging 18:06 of ice time. With 40 goals on the season, Thompson would have become only the fourth center in franchise history to reach the mark. The others: Gilbert Perreault, Pat LaFontaine and Pierre Turgeon.

Thompson’s ascent, along with the development of other young players on the roster, revived a fan base that’s tired of waiting for success. It also helped validate Adams’ plan to build around a new core built around Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin, among others.

The outlook for the Sabres at center has changed remarkably since Sam Reinhart’s trade to Florida in July 2021 and Eichel leaving for Vegas a few months later. In addition to having Thompson under contract long-term, the Sabres have ample depth at the position in Mittelstadt, Dylan Cozens and Peyton Krebs. And the club used all three of its first-round picks in July on dynamic, skilled forwards who can play center: Matthew Savoie, Noah Ostlund and Jiri Kulich.

“When you don't have enough centerman, it's tough in this league,” Adams told The Buffalo News in March. “The emergence of Tage playing the middle, it is massive. … And I've said to Donnie over and over again that I'd love to be in a position where we have a problem that we have so many good centers that a few of them have to move to the wing. That’s a great thing to have.

“It's hard in this league as a young center, and it's been really good to see the growth of those guys.”