This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Tage Thompson
Buffalo Sabres Center
Six foot six, forty-seven goals two seasons ago, and twenty-nine in seventy-one games.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | STL | 41 | 3 | 6 | 9 | -12 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 55 | 5.5 | 11:55 |
| 2018-19 | BUF | 65 | 7 | 5 | 12 | -22 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 108 | 6.5 | 12:08 |
| 2019-20 | BUF | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 6:59 |
| 2020-21 | BUF | 38 | 8 | 6 | 14 | -6 | 17 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 96 | 8.3 | 13:52 |
| 2021-22 | BUF | 78 | 38 | 30 | 68 | -17 | 37 | 10 | 2 | 4 | 253 | 15.0 | 17:53 |
| 2022-23 | BUF | 78 | 47 | 47 | 94 | +4 | 39 | 20 | 1 | 7 | 295 | 15.9 | 18:35 |
| 2023-24 | BUF | 71 | 29 | 27 | 56 | -1 | 43 | 9 | 2 | 3 | 246 | 11.8 | 18:07 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 372 | 132 | 121 | 253 | -54 | 168 | 42 | 5 | 14 | 1053 | 12.5 | 15:58 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
29 goals and 27 assists in 71 games — 56 points at 18:07 a night, minus-1, with 9 power-play goals, 2 shorthanded goals and 3 game-winners on 246 shots, converting at 11.79 per cent, and 43 penalty minutes.
He scored 47 goals two seasons before this one. Twenty-nine in seventy-one games is a rate of 34 across a full year, so this is a step down rather than a collapse, and it happened on the same shot volume.
51.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 968 minutes, the 62nd percentile. His ice went 40-31 against an expectation of 43.42-41.34 — nine fewer goals conceded than the chances predicted.
The Finesse Game
246 attempts at a median of 33 feet, with 28 per cent from beyond 40 and 20 per cent from inside 20, converting at 11.79 per cent.
The release comes from further out than a man that size should be able to score from and it is genuinely heavy. A goaltender setting for a shot at thirty-five feet from a 6-6 centre is dealing with an angle nobody else in the league produces, and 132 goals in 372 career games says it is not a trick.
27 assists. He will make the pass but he is a shooter first, and 42 career power-play goals in 372 games is where the shot is worth the most.
The Physical Game
6-6 and 220, and he does not play as heavy as the frame. He protects the puck with reach rather than by winning a battle, and he will be moved off the wall by a defenceman who commits to it.
43 penalty minutes in 71 games and 168 in 372 for his career. He does not agitate and he does not retaliate, and the size is used for the shot rather than for anything else.
The Intangibles
Twenty-sixth overall in 2016 by St. Louis, traded here in the Ryan O’Reilly deal, and 372 games and 253 points at 26 with a career minus-54.
A 6-6 centre who scores 47 goals in a season is one of about three players in the league who can do that, and he did it on a club that has not made the playoffs. The 29 is the number that decides whether the 47 was the player or the year.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 968 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.2%
- 62nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.5%
- 82nd pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 40 for, 31 against. Expected: 43.4 and 41.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 25 points above where the numbers do. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Usual linemates
2023-24 · 968 minutes at five-on-five
- Alex Tuch65%
- Jeff Skinnernow EDM40%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2023-24
- The club
- BUF took 48.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.2% — 2.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 968 minutes at five-on-five — 54th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Tuch | 51.1% | 51.4% | 48.4% |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 51.9% | 50.6% | 50.9% |
| Jeff Skinner | 53.9% | 49.3% | 45.8% |
51.1% together, 51.4% for him apart and 48.4% for Tuch apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
340 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 29 of them goals. His median goal came from 31 feet. 20% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 28% from beyond forty.