The Top 25 Under 25 is a collaboration by members of the Die By The Blade community. six writers and 718 readers ranked players under the age of 25 as of September 1, 2018 in the Buffalo Sabres organization. Each participant used their own metric of current ability and production against future projection to rank each player. Now, we’ll count down each of the 25 players ranked.
Another newly-acquired skater makes their Buffalo Sabres top 25 under 25 debut, this time in youngster Tage Thompson. Thompson, 20, was brought in from the St. Louis Blues in the Ryan O’Reilly trade. He’s a big time shooter with a large frame.
The former first round pick will be looking to make a splash this year with a NHL club that can give him an expanded role compared to the role he had with the Blues. Thompson spent the majority of last season with the Blues, but did play in 30 games with the San Antonio Rampage in the AHL. It was there that he started to develop more power to his game and fine tune his skating.
Based on the comments both parties made after the trade, Thompson should be seeing more minutes come his way, but things could go south if the Sabres can’t confirm their suspicions that he can succeed in their plans and system for the upcoming season.
TAGE THOMPSON GIVES THE BLUES THE 2-1 LEAD! GORGEOUS STICKHANDLING! pic.twitter.com/xOx3EoUoLQ
— NHL Daily 365 (@NHLDaily365) January 3, 2018
Don’t expect an explosion in production from Thompson, but with some powerplay time and playing alongside of some creative playmakers, he could potentially put up some decent bottom six scoring numbers.