To prepare for a potentially challenging contract negotiation, Buffalo Sabres General Manager Kevyn Adams summoned several members of his hockey operations staff.
The group – which included Sam Ventura, head of the Sabres’ analytics department as vice president of hockey strategy and research – worked together to build a long-term offer to present to Tage Thompson’s agent, Jerry Buckley.
Except the answer wasn’t readily available by analyzing other players around the league. No one has traveled Thompson’s path to the bargaining table. The 24-year-old recorded career highs in goals (38) and points (68), both of which led the Sabres last season, after successfully transitioning to center during Don Granato’s first training camp as coach. At 6-foot-6, Thompson finally found time and space to use his remarkable right-handed shot after four seasons of struggling to do so as a winger.
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“It was a unique marketplace in terms of finding where that deal fit for both sides,” Adams told The Buffalo News. “There's always a lot of work that goes into it. None of these decisions are made in a vacuum. We go through the same process as when we draft players or free agency that we're making sure we do our due diligence.”
Informal talks began at the draft in July and gained momentum in August until the two sides came to an agreement Tuesday on a seven-year, $50 million extension that keeps Thompson under contract with the Sabres through the 2029-30 season. He wasn’t due to become a restricted and unrestricted free agent until July 2023 and 2024, respectively, but the deal provides cost certainty.
The club announced Tuesday that it signed Thompson to a seven-year contract worth $50 million, retaining the 6-foot-7 forward through the 2028-29 season.
A league source told The News that it’s likely general managers will be more aggressive to sign their players to long-term contracts sooner than had been the norm because of what happened in Calgary this summer, when the Flames lost Johnny Gaudreau to the Columbus Blue Jackets and learned restricted free agent Matthew Tkachuk wanted a trade.
Thompson’s price tag would have risen with another 30-goal season as the Sabres’ top-line center. His $7.142 million average annual value will be a bargain if he continues to produce at that rate in his role. There’s risk involved, but Adams and his staff now know how much money they’ll have to spend next summer, when Dylan Cozens, Mattias Samuelsson and Rasmus Asplund are restricted free agents. Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power will need to be paid the following offseason.
For Thompson, the contract protects him in the event of an injury that could affect future earnings and eliminates any uncertainty. And for everyone else in the Sabres dressing room, Adams wants the extension to serve as a message the club will reward players who are committed to improving and want to be in Buffalo.
“I think one of the things I've talked to our players about, both collectively as a team and individually, is we want to do this the right way and really build this to set ourselves up for sustainable success,” he added. “And to do that, we have to identify who fits and who doesn't, who wants to be here, and who wants to be here for the right reasons. And we made it very clear when players show that and perform, that's how we're going to move forward with this group.
“I think for the players, this is just maybe an example to our group of what we've been talking about. To me, it's exciting. And we really want our players to perform and be in a position where we can do this more and more.”
The price tag makes sense for both sides, based on Thompson’s relatively short track record of production in the NHL.
An $8-million-per-season contract was unlikely given the other players in that range performed at a high level for multiple years, including Nashville Predators winger Filip Forsberg ($8.5 million), New York Rangers center Mike Zibanejad ($8.5 million), Carolina Hurricanes center Sebastien Aho ($8.46 million), Ottawa Senators winger Brady Tkachuk ($8.205 million) and San Jose Sharks winger Tomas Hertel ($8.137 million).
Robert Thomas of the St. Louis Blues, a 23-year-old center, is like Thompson in that both hadn’t produced much offensively prior to last season. But Thomas received an $8.125 million-per-year contract after he helped the Blues win the Stanley Cup as a rookie, carved out a consistent role on a contender over multiple years and produced over a point-per game in 2021-22.
Prior to last season, Thompson had totaled only 18 goals and 35 points across 145 games, 104 of which occurred with the Sabres following his move from St. Louis in the blockbuster trade that sent Ryan O’Reilly to the Blues in the summer of 2018. His potential shined in practice but never translated to games under former coaches Phil Housley and Ralph Krueger.
Thompson's track record is also shorter than that of Nico Hischier ($7.25 million), Clayton Keller ($7.15 million), Kyle Connor ($7.142 million), Kevin Hayes ($7.142 million), Gabriel Landeskog ($7 million) and Nazem Kadri ($7 million). But you could argue that Thompson has more long-term upside than anyone in that group.
It’s uncommon to find a center with his physical attributes and package of skills, and Thompson was inching closer to unrestricted free agency.
There’s always risk when paying a player based on one or two seasons of production – New Jersey used the strategy with young centers Hischier and Jack Hughes – but such deals help with long-term team building and ensure a franchise cornerstone is under contract.
Thompson wanted to sign long-term in Buffalo and the Sabres didn't want to lose leverage in negotiations by waiting too long to complete a deal.
Adams had no reservations. He’s always believed in Thompson’s talent. When he was a health scratchy or on the taxi squad under Krueger in 15 of 28 games during the abbreviated 2020-21 season, Thompson routinely chatted with Adams about fending off frustration. It was Adams who gave Thompson a three-year contract in the fall of 2020 after a season in which the 2016 first-round draft pick missed all but one game with a shoulder injury.
And the Sabres now have a coach who knows him better than anyone. Granato masterminded the plan to move Thompson to center based on his skill set, which Granato has observed closely since they were together at the USA Hockey National Team Development Program.
With Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart gone, Thompson paced the Sabres’ offense at center and averaged 17:53 of ice time while centering the first line, mostly alongside Jeff Skinner and Alex Tuch.
This is the latest example of why the Sabres weren’t aggressive in free agency in July. Rather than spending their cap space by overpaying available players on long-term deals, Adams wanted to save for future seasons when, if all goes as planned, the young core will need to be paid.
“Tage, for us, certainly has shown his commitment and value, on and off the ice,” said Adams. “I've talked a lot about our young core and identifying that core and building around the players that want to be here for the right reasons and believe what we're doing. Tage exemplifies all of that.
“We’ve talked a lot about signings, and I've talked to (media) about discipline, and making sure that we're doing things appropriately. And one of the reasons we’re doing that is so we have the ability to sign our key core younger players to deals like this. We're also being strategic a little bit, to be honest, about the timeline knowing that there's other guys potentially next summer where we're going to be in this situation. We want to make sure we're being strategic on when and how we put these deals together. And that's why I felt like it made the most sense for us right now.”
