Assessing the risk of Thompson's extension with Sabres

What is a player like Tage Thompson worth?

The Buffalo Sabres decided the answer to that question was, well, a lot of money. The Sabres were more than willing to bet big on the 24-year old and former first-round pick, signing him to a seven-year, $50 million dollar contract going into effect 2023-24. What makes Thompson such a fascinating player is, prior to the 2021-22 season, he was struggling to maintain himself as an NHL regular. But last season, in a contract year, Thompson’s play exploded to the upside. The winger-turned-centre scored 38 goals (68 points) in a new role, with the added bonus of some new linemates – most notably, speedy playmaking winger Alex Tuch.

I think the Thompson bet by the Sabres, and the evaluation of Thompson as a player, is fascinating. Buffalo clearly believes last season was not a fluke, and a new position with improved quality of teammates (not to mention the physical attributes!) finally saw him realize his potential. There is of course a separate bearish case against Thompson. Prior to last season, he was averaging just 10 goals a season – fourth-line production, bluntly. If you look at Thompson’s offensive output by year, you can see how different last season was.

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Was it an outlier season, or a sign of things to come? This is why I think Thompson is such an intriguing case study, because every franchise deals with a player like Thompson. Do you risk not betting on the player because of a regression fear, or do you double down on a player whose play – which looks like outlier-performance – would well justify his next contract if it held up?

When we meet these moments, I prefer to not throw away data. Just as we should appropriately weigh Thompson’s breakout season (including a position change), we should weigh the games predating last season. More data gives us more clarity, and it certainly allows for benchmarking.

Let’s look at Thompson compared to his peers over the same timeframe (2017-22), and we will further isolate on younger players like him who may have more upside ahead of them in their playing careers. The below table shows players who (a) received common usage rates; and (b) scored at similar rates to Thompson over the course of his 223-game career.

If you include a couple of hidden gems (like Calgary sixth-round pick Andrew Mangiapane), you get a list of 18-forwards with comparable career production to Thompson through 2022. Here’s that list:

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If we compare Thompson to the others, you can see just how meaningful last season was. Thompson evolved significantly from that of a fourth-line forward. He hasn’t scored as much as players like Calgary’s Andrew Mangiapane, and he’s certainly not used the same way Dallas’ Roope Hintz is. But whether it’s Vancouver’s Conor Garland, Anaheim’s Troy Terry, Montreal’s Nick Suzuki, or Carolina’s Martin Necas, there are a lot of quality middle-six forwards that compare with Thompson’s play.

Let’s take a look at the contracts of the 18 comparable players for financial benchmarking. This won’t be perfectly apples-to-apples, since positional differences (i.e. wing vs. centre) and defensive contributions can alter how front offices deploy capital towards players. But there are a number of players who have received similar long-term bets from their affiliate franchises. Here’s that list:

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Setting aside players on bridge deals and those we expect to get long-term deals in the not-too-distant future (like Hitnz), we have three bona fide comparables in Suzuki, Robert Thomas, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi, with a Garland, who signed earlier, worth including.

And this is where I think benchmarking becomes interesting. We know players are paid for contributions in all three zones, but we also know front offices prioritize scoring from their forwards when it’s time to hammer out a new contract. If we look at these five players and their respective career production (we will use Goals Above Replacement to evaluate total contributions for this piece), how does Thompson’s new deal compare to what’s out there?

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There is an interesting dichotomy across these five players. The first two – Thompson and Kotkaniemi – were aggressively bid before sustained out-performance was realized. In the case of Buffalo, the Sabres had one quality season of scoring from Thompson, hoping it’s a harbinger of things to come. Carolina finally saw some limited scoring from Kotkaniemi last year, but their big bet was largely tied to wooing the player away from Montreal (and the fact he was an established quality defensive forward).   

That bin feels different to the second bin, which includes Suzuki and Thomas. Suzuki has three seasons of top-six production on a truly bad hockey team; Thomas exceeded point-per-game production a year ago, but has also been a demonstrably better hockey player since entering the league in 2018-19. Both Suzuki and Thomas are set to make more, and for good reason: we have much more confidence in them as quality players as we do, say, Thompson and Kotkaniemi. Lastly, there’s Garland, who appears to be on one of the friendlier contracts you can find in the league – the now 26-year old will make less than $5-million per season through 2025-26 despite comparable performance, though his deal was inked a year ago.

So, what do we make of this deal for Thompson and Buffalo? There’s no doubt the Sabres are carrying some serious risk here – if Thompson’s play goes the way of a Kotkaniemi (who is a fine player, it should be noted), it’s an obvious overpayment on their books. And that’s while recognizing that Kotkaniemi has been a more productive player, at least so far, than Thompson has in Buffalo.

But the Sabres are betting that Thompson’s last season is what we will see going forward. A risky bet, sure. But if they are correct – that a positional change and improving roster around him are a boon for his play – Thompson’s deal is going to look like a discounted version of Suzuki’s and Thomas’, and that’s not nothing.

More than anything, this is why benchmarking is critical in every industry, and is no different in hockey. We have to evaluate opportunities and risks based on what we know today. And though Thompson may prove to be a tricky player to evaluate, we can look around the league at players who have had less volatile performance to better understand what a fair number may be for both the player and the team. And more than anything else, I’m fascinated to see if Buffalo’s monster bet on their big centre is the type of move that turns this organization around. Committing salary is always easy; committing salary in a sensible way to players who are going to routinely produce is the forever-challenge, and one that’s daunted this Buffalo organization for more than a decade now.

Data via Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, NHL.com, Hockey Reference