Tage Thompson has become arguably the best player on the Buffalo Sabres after initially struggling after he arrived in the Ryan O’Reilly Trade.
With the fifth pick in the 2016 NHL Redraft, the Vancouver Canucks selected Tage Thompson, and in this alternate universe, the Buffalo Sabres probably wouldn’t have their star center today. Unless they decided to trade Ryan O’Reilly to Vancouver, as opposed to the St. Louis Blues.
Adam Gretz of Bleacher Report had some fun redrafting the 2016 NHL Draft, and Tage, initially the Blues first round pick at 26th overall, jumped 21 spots to fifth, where it’s likely he’d still be a Canuck today if such a situation played out.
Tage took longer than the average first round pick to develop and break out, and my guess is that he would have probably still gone through his same struggles in Vancouver. But just as the Canucks seemed ready to give up on him, he still would have taken off in 2021-22, before enjoying the dynamic 2022-23 campaign that he had.
Tage goes to Vancouver in redraft, Buffalo Sabres pick Alex DeBrincat
In 2016, the Sabres drafted Alex Nylander, a pick that was a disaster from the start. DeBrincat, thanks to his small build, wasn’t even a first round pick, but his productivity since entering the league, before, really, justifies him going eighth overall to the Sabres.
But ironically enough, general manager Kevyn Adams atoned for this in 2022 when he drafted Matt Savoie ninth overall. Savoie is a similar player to DeBrincat, given his lack of size and strength, but his knack for scoring goals and finding the open man to put the puck in the net makes up for this.
Neither player will add much more to their game beyond scoring, but I think we can all agree that the Buffalo Sabres would have been much, much happier with DeBrincat in town as opposed to Nylander in hindsight. Just like they’ll be happy, in time, to see Savoie grace the ice at KeyBank Arena, even if he ultimately ends up as not much more than someone who scores goals and/or logs plenty of assists.
Source: Redrafting Matthew Tkachuk and the Top 10 of 2016 NHL Draft by Adam Gretz, BleacherReport.com