Buffalo Sabres: Tage Thompson must earn an extension

The Buffalo Sabres faithful is loud and clear: They want general manager Kevyn Adams to work on signing center Tage Thompson to an extension. 

Once regarded as an afterthought, no one covering the Buffalo Sabres had a high opinion of Thompson in October 2021. But even after an outstanding 2021-22 campaign, Kevyn Adams should be in no hurry to extend the first line center.

That’s right, Thompson must earn his extension and he hasn’t done it yet. And although he had a phenomenal year, it has been an outlier for his career. We need to remember that he was riding the Bust Label even as recently as September 2021. So to extend a guy who exceeded wild expectations for a season is just reckless and somewhat desperate.

Tage Thompson must put together multiple productive seasons for the Buffalo Sabres before they commit to an extension

This past season, Thompson lit up the league. He scored 68 points in 78 games, pacing the team with 38 goals. His shooting percentage sat at a stellar 15, and he logged a career-best 17:53 of average ice time.

And hey, kudos to Thompson. He was arguably the team’s best scorer. But he doesn’t deserve an extension yet. I mean, the guy scored a combined 35 points in 145 NHL appearances before last season. Like I said, signing Thompson to an extension right now would be reckless.

Now, if he’s playing even close to the same level this season, then yeah, by all means, sign him for the next half-decade. If he’s playing better, definitely sign him. But there is no way you sign a guy to an extension because he had what at this point you can consider a Cinderella season.

Personally, I think Thompson will have a repeat performance or something close to it and he will snag his extension with a nice paycheck. But we need to make absolutely sure he can post solid output year after year.

And it’s not just Thompson. Victor Olofsson played well in 2019-20 and he looked okay in 2020-21. But he didn’t do enough to warrant a potential extension or re-signing. This season, he definitely looked like he was out in Buffalo until he regained his form.

The difference? Olofsson had been at least moderately productive over multiple seasons. Thompson has yet to do this. So let’s hold off on the extension talks for the moment and make sure Thompson earns additional time in Buffalo.

(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)