Thompson’s Next Contract?

[GASabresIUFAN]

11 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Hope people get the nuance here, but I don't think this is a career year as much as it is a breakthrough year.

I see it as similar to Eichel, Dahlin and Reinhart's 4th year: a season which sets the baseline for what we can generally expect from him going forward; even if he never matches it, he should be in the ballpark.

It not like he's an established 40-point guy who suddenly put up 60 in his 7th season. He lost a year to injury and has played less than 150 games before this season.

There is a huge difference between Sam, Dahlin and Jack.  Sam has improved every year in the NHL but has always maintained a consistently good shooting %.  Dahlin, except the year with RK has had similar annual improvement. Jack on the other hand had a breakout year but hasn’t really built on it.  Maybe it was the injury or maybe it was significantly more puck luck in a career goal scoring year.

Tage’s season is coming out of no where.  It’s hard to judge if it’s a career year or a new standard which is why I say exercise caution.  

[triumph_communes]

12 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

There is a huge difference between Sam, Dahlin and Jack.  Sam has improved every year in the NHL but has always maintained a consistently good shooting %.  Dahlin, except the year with RK has had similar annual improvement. Jack on the other hand had a breakout year but hasn’t really built on it.  Maybe it was the injury or maybe it was significantly more puck luck in a career goal scoring year.

Tage’s season is coming out of no where.  It’s hard to judge if it’s a career year or a new standard which is why I say exercise caution.  

It was opposing teams. Eichel first year teams didn’t game plan to stop Eichel, just contain a bad team. By his second year opposing teams realized the Sabres only had offense throug Eichel and chose to sacrifice those minutes to just playing defense and it worked. 

[dudacek]

6 hours ago, steveoath said:

Tage was on the Athletic Hockey podcast yesterday. Good insights.

 28 min 30s in. But there is some Vegas bashing earlier for those that like that sort of things.

This is well worth a listen.

Tage comes across as focused, self-aware, self-assured and fully bought in to what this team is trying to build.

He sounds like a leader.

[Curt]

On 4/20/2022 at 12:59 AM, thewookie1 said:

William Karlsson, he to had a similar explosion when the 1C role was thrust on him but has never been anywhere near as good since. 

In that 43 goal season, Karlsson shot 23.4% which is outrageously high and anyone looking at it would know that it would not be repeated.

Thompson this season is shooting 14.9% which is a more normal % for a good shooter.

He could certainly drop off a little, but this is not a Karlsson level situation.

[GASabresIUFAN]

On 4/21/2022 at 11:39 AM, Curt said:

In that 43 goal season, Karlsson shot 23.4% which is outrageously high and anyone looking at it would know that it would not be repeated.

Thompson this season is shooting 14.9% which is a more normal % for a good shooter.

He could certainly drop off a little, but this is not a Karlsson level situation.

Karlsson is actually diminishing year by year - Shooting percentages annually - 23.4, 14.2, 10.9, 12.6, 8.8 (This season).  Not exactly a great trend.  Taylor Hall-esque.

No it's actually not.  It's a number put up by elite of the elite scorers. Crosby's career number is 14.6, Ovechkin 12.9, Matthews 16.4, Stamkos 16.9, McDavid 15.

Skinner's best season was also 14.9, but his average for his career is 10.9.  He has had some stellar years of 14.9, 14.4 13.2, 13.0 (this year). However he has stunk in others with cold seasons of 9.5, 8.2, 7.7, 8.7, 7.7, and 6.3.  Skinner alone illustrates the danger of overpaying a sniper.  

His shot reminds me of Jack and so far in Jack's career he has only hit that high note once.  Jack's career shooting by season is 10.1, 9.6, 10.2, 9.2, 15.9, 3.3, 10.3.  One of the these seasons is not like the others.  

Olofsson is another comparable.  In his 3 seasons he has varied at 15.7, 10.1 and 12.5 this season.

Taylor Hall is similar to Jack. In the last decade his percentages are 10.4, 10.8, 8.9, 9.1, 8.4, 14.0, 9.7, 6.9, 7.4 (Buf/Bos), 9.0.  Again his MVP year was another outlier.

Thompson's career so far: 5.5, 6.5, 8.3, 14.9.  It's certainly possible he repeats this performance, but caution is warranted. 

 

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by GASabresIUFAN

[GASabresIUFAN]

Interesting tidbit.  On the Athletic’s “hockey player cards”. They now list Thompson’s market value at 7 million.

https://theathletic.com/3062387/2022/04/19/nhl-player-cards-buffalo-sabres/ (From 4/19).

They list Tuch with a market value of 8.2, Skins @ 5.7 and VO at only 2.7.  Obviously some of that may reflect the 4/19’s date for evaluating VO, because no way a consistent 20+ goal, 40-50 pt scorer gets as little as 2.7 in today’s NHL.  We’ll be lucky if we get him at 5.5.  A couple of nice surprises were Asplund at 2.3 and Vinnie at 2.5.

On defense @LGR4GM will be please they have the mkt value for Joki at -.4.  Ouch!

Edited April 27, 2022 by GASabresIUFAN

[Doohickie]

1 minute ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

they have the mkt value for Joki at -.4.  Ouch!

I find this hard to believe in the context of some of the truly horrid Dmen the Sabres have had over the last decade.  He isn't a generational talent but he's no slouch.

[GASabresIUFAN]

1 minute ago, Doohickie said:

I find this hard to believe in the context of some of the truly horrid Dmen the Sabres have had over the last decade.  He isn't a generational talent but he's no slouch.

This is what happens when every D who plays with you sees their metrics fall.

[PerreaultForever]

On 4/20/2022 at 9:56 AM, GASabresIUFAN said:

There is a huge difference between Sam, Dahlin and Jack.  Sam has improved every year in the NHL but has always maintained a consistently good shooting %.  Dahlin, except the year with RK has had similar annual improvement. Jack on the other hand had a breakout year but hasn’t really built on it.  Maybe it was the injury or maybe it was significantly more puck luck in a career goal scoring year.

Tage’s season is coming out of no where.  It’s hard to judge if it’s a career year or a new standard which is why I say exercise caution.  

I always dumped on Sam because I saw him as a poor leader and an off again on again type player. In hindsight I now think his relationship with Jack held him back. He played his best hockey for us last year when Jack was out of the line up and pretty much already gone and now he's even better in Florida. He isn't a leader, not his personality, but surrounded with the right players he is a solid player. There I said it. Hell didn't freeze over. 

He still had to go though. House had to be cleaned. 

I agree with you on Tage. If I'm KA I'm not dumping a pile of money on him right now. I'm waiting to see if he brings it next year again and if he does he gets his value next contract, but no ransom demand like Skinner, just fair value for whatever level he brings. 

[nfreeman]

12 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

I always dumped on Sam because I saw him as a poor leader and an off again on again type player. In hindsight I now think his relationship with Jack held him back. He played his best hockey for us last year when Jack was out of the line up and pretty much already gone and now he's even better in Florida. He isn't a leader, not his personality, but surrounded with the right players he is a solid player. There I said it. Hell didn't freeze over. 

He still had to go though. House had to be cleaned.

I agree with most of this, but I don't think bringing him back would've been a problem if he had wanted to sign an extension last summer.  However, since he wanted to go, I agree that moving him out was the right move as opposed to exercising their control over him as an RFA and keeping him here against his wishes.

[Curt]

On 4/24/2022 at 10:16 AM, GASabresIUFAN said:

Karlsson is actually diminishing year by year - Shooting percentages annually - 23.4, 14.2, 10.9, 12.6, 8.8 (This season).  Not exactly a great trend.  Taylor Hall-esque.

No it's actually not.  It's a number put up by elite of the elite scorers. Crosby's career number is 14.6, Ovechkin 12.9, Matthews 16.4, Stamkos 16.9, McDavid 15.

Skinner's best season was also 14.9, but his average for his career is 10.9.  He has had some stellar years of 14.9, 14.4 13.2, 13.0 (this year). However he has stunk in others with cold seasons of 9.5, 8.2, 7.7, 8.7, 7.7, and 6.3.  Skinner alone illustrates the danger of overpaying a sniper.  

His shot reminds me of Jack and so far in Jack's career he has only hit that high note once.  Jack's career shooting by season is 10.1, 9.6, 10.2, 9.2, 15.9, 3.3, 10.3.  One of the these seasons is not like the others.  

Olofsson is another comparable.  In his 3 seasons he has varied at 15.7, 10.1 and 12.5 this season.

Taylor Hall is similar to Jack. In the last decade his percentages are 10.4, 10.8, 8.9, 9.1, 8.4, 14.0, 9.7, 6.9, 7.4 (Buf/Bos), 9.0.  Again his MVP year was another outlier.

Thompson's career so far: 5.5, 6.5, 8.3, 14.9.  It's certainly possible he repeats this performance, but caution is warranted. 

 

 

I get what you are saying, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Thompson’s sh% decreases next season.  Yeah, player shooting percentages are going to vary, it’s the nature of the beast, it doesn’t mean that it’s a fluke. Thompson might shoot 15% this season, 12% next season, 8%, 13%, 17%.........

However, there are plenty of players who maintain a very high shooting percentage over a large period of time.  Over the past 5 seasons, there are 40 players who have played over 200 games and over that time period averaged a sh% higher than what Thompson has this season.  If you knock it down to a lesser but still high % of 13%, there are literally 100 players who have averaged that over the past 5 seasons.

Its not just the elite of the elite players who are able to maintain shooting percentages in that range.  Lots of very good but not elite players are able to do it.

In addition to this, you can look at Thompson’s previous lower sh%’s, but you also need to look at the player.  To my eyes, Thompson is not playing the same way he did in previous seasons but just getting lucky this year.  There have been real changes in his skill set that are resulting in this higher sh%.  The way he is using his shot, the better positions that he is getting himself into, the more dangerous situations that he is creating and benefitting from his teammates creating.  He is a different player.

I think that he will be able to maintain a fairly high sh% going forward.  I think he will probably average over 12% for the rest of his career.

[GASabresIUFAN]

There is no question TNT is better.  He deserves all the accolades coming his way.  None of that changes the fact that we need to see him do it again to establish him among the elite on the NHL.  I have never said he won’t do it or can’t, I’m just saying caution is warranted.

[Curt]

10 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

There is no question TNT is better.  He deserves all the accolades coming his way.  None of that changes the fact that we need to see him do it again to establish him among the elite on the NHL.  I have never said he won’t do it or can’t, I’m just saying caution is warranted.

Definitely some caution is warranted until we see how he follows this up.

All my stuff was in response to Wookiee saying that this is a lot like what Karlsson did.  Karlsson shooting over 23% is a lot different from Thompson shooting 15%.

To maintain anything anywhere near 23%, that’s elite elite scorer territory, and anyone should have known that Karlsson wasn’t that level.  But lots of good, not elite, players are able to maintain shooting %’s in the neighborhood of what Thompson is doing this season.

[RochesterExpat]

19 minutes ago, Curt said:

I get what you are saying, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Thompson’s sh% decreases next season.  Yeah, player shooting percentages are going to vary, it’s the nature of the beast, it doesn’t mean that it’s a fluke. Thompson might shoot 15% this season, 12% next season, 8%, 13%, 17%.........

However, there are plenty of players who maintain a very high shooting percentage over a large period of time.  Over the past 5 seasons, there are 40 players who have played over 200 games and over that time period averaged a sh% higher than what Thompson has this season.  If you knock it down to a lesser but still high % of 13%, there are literally 100 players who have averaged that over the past 5 seasons.

Its not just the elite of the elite players who are able to maintain shooting percentages in that range.  Lots of very good but not elite players are able to do it.

In addition to this, you can look at Thompson’s previous lower sh%’s, but you also need to look at the player.  To my eyes, Thompson is not playing the same way he did in previous seasons but just getting lucky this year.  There have been real changes in his skill set that are resulting in this higher sh%.  The way he is using his shot, the better positions that he is getting himself into, the more dangerous situations that he is creating and benefitting from his teammates creating.  He is a different player.

I think that he will be able to maintain a fairly high sh% going forward.  I think he will probably average over 12% for the rest of his career.

If you need any better of an example of players with really variable shooting percentages just look at Chris Kreider.

He shot a career high of 19.6 last season and he's going to finish over 20% this year, but it's a massive leap from the 15% of 2019 and 14% the year prior. I'd have said there was no way after last season he'd ever shoot higher than 19.6 and I'd have been wrong. I'd still say there's no way he shoots over 20% next season, but I could be wrong.

Tage will probably see a regression in his shooting percentage, but he has the strength of shot and the release--not to mention improved positioning--to maintain a fairly 'high' success rate (12-13%). He's not getting a bunch of garbage goals or lucky bounces.

[SDS]

On 4/20/2022 at 7:03 AM, steveoath said:

Tage was on the Athletic Hockey podcast yesterday. Good insights.

 28 min 30s in. But there is some Vegas bashing earlier for those that like that sort of things.

You mean everyone…

[Doohickie]

1 hour ago, nfreeman said:

I agree with most of this, but I don't think bringing him back would've been a problem if he had wanted to sign an extension last summer.  However, since he wanted to go, I agree that moving him out was the right move as opposed to exercising their control over him as an RFA and keeping him here against his wishes.

I also think that KA expected to move him though, thus the one year contract the summer before.  It wasn't publicized as much as it was with Jack (because basically Reino's a decent player) but I suspect that either KA previously identified Reino as "not part of the solution"/"doesn't want to play in Buffalo" or Reino told him that he didn't want to stay.

[Taro T]

32 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

I also think that KA expected to move him though, thus the one year contract the summer before.  It wasn't publicized as much as it was with Jack (because basically Reino's a decent player) but I suspect that either KA previously identified Reino as "not part of the solution"/"doesn't want to play in Buffalo" or Reino told him that he didn't want to stay.

🍺

 

[PerreaultForever]

7 hours ago, nfreeman said:

I agree with most of this, but I don't think bringing him back would've been a problem if he had wanted to sign an extension last summer.  However, since he wanted to go, I agree that moving him out was the right move as opposed to exercising their control over him as an RFA and keeping him here against his wishes.

Exactly. he had way too much leverage if he wanted to hold out like Skinner. Not valuable enough to let that happen again. He's a good player, but I still see him as a complimentary player and we needed leaders with fresh attitudes. 

When Levi gets his first shut out everybody here will be happy.