Tage Thompson is a super star

[Brawndo]

He is so good He doesn’t even need to play defense

 

 

[Thorny]

Still room for a bit of development, then.

given his track record of having a penchant for development, this is probably a good thing 

[matter2003]

Tage Thompson now leads the NHL over the past 82 games in Goals/60 minutes(min 20 games played) at 2.17 over Auston Matthews(2.08). Astonishing ascension from where he was.  Not sure which one is more improbable...Allen's ascension with the Bills or Thompson's ascension with the Sabres.

Also...look at Jeff Skinner on there at #16.

Edited December 16, 2022 by matter2003

[French Collection]

37 minutes ago, matter2003 said:

Tage Thompson now leads the NHL over the past 82 games in Goals/60 minutes(min 20 games played) at 2.17 over Auston Matthews(2.08). Astonishing ascension from where he was.  Not sure which one is more improbable...Allen's ascension with the Bills or Thompson's ascension with the Sabres.

Also...look at Jeff Skinner on there at #16.

Can you forward this spreadsheet to TSN and Sportsnet, they pushed the Matthews MVP chants last season. There was talk of him being better than McJesus. He had a great season but Leafblower are Leafblowers.

[matter2003]

2 minutes ago, French Collection said:

Can you forward this spreadsheet to TSN and Sportsnet, they pushed the Matthews MVP chants last season. There was talk of him being better than McJesus. He had a great season but Leafblower are Leafblowers.

He is also 9th in terms of points/60 minutes also...and Skinner is 19th...

[matter2003]

And in the last 20 games, Thompson leads all players in points/60...Skinner is 6th, Cozens in 8th.  Sabres are really starting to turn it up...

 

[Thorny]

50 minutes ago, matter2003 said:

Tage Thompson now leads the NHL over the past 82 games in Goals/60 minutes(min 20 games played) at 2.17 over Auston Matthews(2.08). Astonishing ascension from where he was.  Not sure which one is more improbable...Allen's ascension with the Bills or Thompson's ascension with the Sabres.

Also...look at Jeff Skinner on there at #16.

It’s Thompson by FAR

Allen was a top 5 pick - who rose to prominence pretty quickly, on schedule, after being picked.

Thompson, several years after being drafted, looked on his way out of the league. 

Allen’s story is still an eye-opener but that just speaks to the absurdity of Thompson’s rise. You will never see a Sabre do that again in your lifetime 

[matter2003]

13 minutes ago, Thorny said:

It’s Thompson by FAR

Allen was a top 5 pick - who rose to prominence pretty quickly, on schedule, after being picked.

Thompson, several years after being drafted, looked on his way out of the league. 

Allen’s story is still an eye-opener but that just speaks to the absurdity of Thompson’s rise. You will never see a Sabre do that again in your lifetime 

Gotta be careful with that...we have already seen an even greater one from a Sabre player in my lifetime in Dominik Hasek.

[Thorny]

6 minutes ago, matter2003 said:

Gotta be careful with that...we have already seen an even greater one from a Sabre player in my lifetime in Dominik Hasek.

I think Thompson’s rise was crazier. Hasek, (the best Sabres player I’ve ever seen, and the greatest GT of all time), was putting up good numbers from his first season in Buffalo

Thompson’s rise is so crazy that people shouldn’t even bother uttering his name in reference to guys like Casey. He won’t rise to Hasek levels but again the key distinction with Tage is how little he had shown for as long as he did. To have his numbers escalate to the level they did, so suddenly, when all the numbers beforehand suggested “wash out” (his elite prospects page is awesome) is something I’m not sure we’ve ever seen, league wide.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Thorny

[Thorny]

Even Jonathan Cheechoo started his 2 year explosion at age 23, during his second year in the league (and then promptly dropped off)

[CTJoe]

23 minutes ago, Thorny said:

It’s Thompson by FAR

Allen was a top 5 pick - who rose to prominence pretty quickly, on schedule, after being picked.

Thompson, several years after being drafted, looked on his way out of the league. 

Allen’s story is still an eye-opener but that just speaks to the absurdity of Thompson’s rise. You will never see a Sabre do that again in your lifetime 

I wouldn't say BY FAR, and Josh was picked 7th overall, not top 5.  Tage was picked late 1st round, so he had expectations coming in

[Thorny]

6 minutes ago, CTJoe said:

I wouldn't say BY FAR, and Josh was picked 7th overall, not top 5.  Tage was picked late 1st round, so he had expectations coming in

Whoops, thanks for the correction 

Still comes to the same thing for me, and I’ll say it again: it’s not as much about the snap shot in time from when they were drafted (though clearly JA still went in a different, higher tier - he was drafted with the *expectation* of being a starting QB, no?), it’s the context that includes the rest of their paths travelled since their drafts 

Edited December 16, 2022 by Thorny

[Thorny]

By JA’s second year in the league he was better than a 2-1 TD/INT rate at 20-9, by his 3rd year he was 37-10 td-to-pick throwing for 4500 yards. 

Some of the JA narrative was sullied by the twitter convo that lambasted the pick from day 1, erroneously because he didn’t mesh well with the advanced stats, and they clung to that bias fir a long time. Lots of the more traditional metrics were always in his favour. 

In Tage’s 5th post draft year, he had 14 points. In Allen’s 3rd season, he was an mvp candidate 

[shrader]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

It’s Thompson by FAR

Allen was a top 5 pick - who rose to prominence pretty quickly, on schedule, after being picked.

Thompson, several years after being drafted, looked on his way out of the league. 

Allen’s story is still an eye-opener but that just speaks to the absurdity of Thompson’s rise. You will never see a Sabre do that again in your lifetime 

It just goes to show you how different the two leagues are. Thompson started his professional career about a year and a half before Allen, but he’s right around a year and a half younger than Allen. I’m too lazy to pinpoint exact dates, but it seems like those big breakthroughs happened at right around the same age. 

[Thorny]

37 minutes ago, shrader said:

It just goes to show you how different the two leagues are. Thompson started his professional career about a year and a half before Allen, but he’s right around a year and a half younger than Allen. I’m too lazy to pinpoint exact dates, but it seems like those big breakthroughs happened at right around the same age. 

Pretty much. 

Another reason why Tage’s breakthrough is more astounding, re: perspective is the age at which they are drafted relative to the NFL. Tage’s 26th overall isn’t really comparable to JA’s 7th overall - even a late first in the NHL is basically a crapshoot, first round nfl draftees are *expected* to be contributors, nm top 10 picks nm top QB picks. 

Thompson was a “maybe” who progressed to “very unlikely” before proceeding to “undeniable”.

The bills drafted Allen *expecting* him to be a starter, regardless of what twitter said 

Both Thompson and Allen have a crazy rise from “real player” to “among the best in their league” but just playing in the league at all was much more of a question with Tage and became a greater question, by the year, for several years post draft

Edited December 16, 2022 by Thorny

[grinreaper]

17 hours ago, Thorny said:

Pretty much. 

Another reason why Tage’s breakthrough is more astounding, re: perspective is the age at which they are drafted relative to the NFL. Tage’s 26th overall isn’t really comparable to JA’s 7th overall - even a late first in the NHL is basically a crapshoot, first round nfl draftees are *expected* to be contributors, nm top 10 picks nm top QB picks. 

Thompson was a “maybe” who progressed to “very unlikely” before proceeding to “undeniable”.

The bills drafted Allen *expecting* him to be a starter, regardless of what twitter said 

Both Thompson and Allen have a crazy rise from “real player” to “among the best in their league” but just playing in the league at all was much more of a question with Tage and became a greater question, by the year, for several years post draft

As mentioned earlier, Josh was taken 7th after Beane moved up with several moves to get there including trading away a starting Left Tackle to Cincinnati. The media, which seemed to reflect the evaluations of many in the NFL thought that he had accuracy issues that probably couldn't be fixed. Allen was considered raw and at best a project. Beane and McDermott did their homework and felt that he was the QB with the highest ceiling in the draft. Prior to the draft he played for Wyoming for two years without any real competition. Anyway, there were no plans to start him in his rookie year but Peterman couldn't perform in games like he could in practice and Allen ended up starting. Josh struggled but had his moments and showed flashes of ability. He improved some in his second year and then blossomed in his third year with great stats and received reluctant acclaim from around the league.

As I think you were alluding to above, just the different ways the NFL and NHL are set up from their drafts to how their players are developed cannot be compared. Drafted NFL players are expected to make the gameday roster or practice squad immediately and their training or development is mostly focused on the team's specific schemes. I'm not saying that they don't often need some help in the basics but they are already considered pro level football players.

NHL players of course are drafted at a much younger age and their potential is a big part of their draft value. From my experience, I've heard a lot of comments regarding young, highly drafted NHL players that get the opportunity to play against established NHL players that the young ones need to put on muscle and learn to play against men. That may be true to some degree with young NFL players but they are older and have been going through weight programs since high school and throughout college. Anyway, draft age means something completely different when comparing players from the two sports. Real age is not a perfect comparison but is probably in the ballpark. 

Edited December 17, 2022 by grinreaper

[Porous Five Hole]

7 hours ago, Thorny said:

By JA’s second year in the league he was better than a 2-1 TD/INT rate at 20-9, by his 3rd year he was 37-10 td-to-pick throwing for 4500 yards. 

Some of the JA narrative was sullied by the twitter convo that lambasted the pick from day 1, erroneously because he didn’t mesh well with the advanced stats, and they clung to that bias fir a long time. Lots of the more traditional metrics were always in his favour. 

In Tage’s 5th post draft year, he had 14 points. In Allen’s 3rd season, he was an mvp candidate 

Your reference to JA17’s meteoric jump from year one to year three cannot be overstated.  
 

An old measure of a QB’s ability to translate his game at the professional level was a QB’s college completion percentage. Allen was never known for his accuracy, completing 56 percent of his attempts as a junior in college and 56.2 percent as a senior, before his completion percentage dropped to 52.8 percent as a rookie in the NFL (60% was the agreed upon metric for having a chance to be “good”)

For him to rise from those metrics to a completion percentage of almost 70% in year three (2020)…it just  had never been done before. Like I said, it was meteoric.  
 

And with that leap in mind, it doesn’t begin to touch the jump that Tage made from all seasons pre-June 2020 to 2020-2021 season.  It’s so hard to explain Tage’s rise to a non-hockey fan.  Because the Josh Allen comparison isn’t strong enough.  It’s crazy.  I need a word stronger than meteoric and I cannot find one.  

[K-9]

59 minutes ago, Porous Five Hole said:

And with that leap in mind, it doesn’t begin to touch the jump that Tage made from all seasons pre-June 2020 to 2020-2021 season.  It’s so hard to explain Tage’s rise to a non-hockey fan.  Because the Josh Allen comparison isn’t strong enough.  It’s crazy.  I need a word stronger than meteoric and I cannot find one.  

Let’s go with supernova. 

[North Buffalo]

41 minutes ago, K-9 said:

Let’s go with supernova. 

supernovas burn out quickly, lets hope Josh is more like a Quasar... 

[Pimlach]

On 12/15/2022 at 5:31 PM, Thorny said:

Still room for a bit of development, then.

given his track record of having a penchant for development, this is probably a good thing 

Face offs.   He needs to get better on face offs.  It will help his defensive zone play    

[Zamboni]

6 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

Face offs.   He needs to get better on face offs.  It will help his defensive zone play    

He’s certainly not terrible at FO. But you are right he needs improvement. I think he’ll get there. Just a 10% improvement would be awesome.

[K-9]

2 hours ago, North Buffalo said:

supernovas burn out quickly, lets hope Josh is more like a Quasar... 

I was thinking more about the explosion of a star as in Tage seems to be a star who exploding on the scene at the moment. But I take your point. Perhaps quazar is more apt. 

[nfreeman]

8 hours ago, grinreaper said:

As mentioned earlier, Josh was taken 7th after Beane moved up with several moves to get there including trading away a starting Left Tackle to Cincinnati. The media, which seemed to reflect the evaluations of many in the NFL thought that he had accuracy issues that probably couldn't be fixed. Allen was considered raw and at best a project. Beane and McDermott did their homework and felt that he was the QB with the highest ceiling in the draft. Prior to the draft he played for Wyoming for two years without any real competition. Anyway, there were no plans to start him in his rookie year but Peterman couldn't perform in games like he could in practice and Allen ended up starting. Josh struggled but had his moments and showed flashes of ability. He improved some in his second year and then blossomed in his third year with great stats and received reluctant acclaim from around the league. As I think you were alluding to above, just the different ways the NFL and NHL are set up from their drafts to how their players are developed cannot be compared. Drafted NFL players are expected to make the gameday roster or practice squad immediately and their training or development is mostly focused on the team's specific schemes. I'm not saying that they don't often need some help in the basics but they are already considered pro level football players. NHL players of course are drafted at a much younger age and their potential is a big part of their draft value. From my experience, I've heard a lot of comments regarding young, highly drafted NHL players that get the opportunity to play against established NHL players that the young ones need to put on muscle and learn to play against men. That may be true to some degree with young NFL players but they are older and have been going through weight programs since high school and throughout college. Anyway, draft age means something completely different when comparing players from the two sports. Real age is not a perfect comparison but is probably in the ballpark. 

GR — you’re an excellent poster, but please break up posts like this into paragraphs. The monolithic wall of text is hard to read.  I’d guess that plenty of board members just blow right by without reading it.

[bob_sauve28]

 

[Thorny]

^its not even just that his goal scoring exploded, it exploded, and then some time later his playmaking ALSO caught up, which makes it so much weirder because it wasn’t just development, he wasn’t just a shoot-first player who developed into a great goal scorer against the curve, while developing he also morphed into a balanced offensive player.

Like ya the raw tools were always there that indicated he could be a goal scorer but nothing in his pre-draft years indicated a penchant for playmaking. The very change in nature is again something that sets his rise apart. 

The shift to C prob a big factor in this and is what the management team gets the most credit for imo with Tage simply getting the bulk of the rest.