BUFFALO, N.Y. — Why has Tage Thompson been able to go from eight goals, to 38 goals to being on a pace for 66 goals?
Or course, the talent is there. There's pure shooting ability combined with speed and agility. It’s hard to compare him with anybody because there haven’t been any 6-foot, 7-inch players in the NHL that have the talents he has.
Mario Lemieux, of course, is one of a kind, and he was 6-4. The only player that I could even come close with was Alex Ovechkin from the Washington Capitals. Both possess cannons for shots, and both score most of their goals on one-timers from the left circle.
What boggles my mind is in both cases, teams know that Thompson and Ovechkin are going to be over there in the circle ready to shoot, but those two are always open. Teams just can't figure out ways to take that play away from either one of them.
Ovechkin’s career high is 65 goals while Thompson is on a 66 goal pace this season.
Thompson spent a lot of time on Thursday discussing a huge reason why his career is where it's at. It’s just that he’s been surrounded by people that believe in him. Don Granato was with Thompson when he was 16 years old with the U.S. Under-18 team. Thompson said knowing that his head coach believes in him and that his teammates believe in him gives him all the confidence he needs to succeed and to get better.
Thompson also never gets too high or too low. In my role at WGR, I talk to one of the Sabres as they come off the ice at the end of the first period. Of course, after scoring four goals and an assist in the first period Wednesday, Thompson was my guest.
He’s always in the moment looking ahead. Even though Buffalo led the Columbus Blue Jackets 6-0, Thompson was still thinking about the final 40 minutes of that game. After the game, he said he’ll spend a few minutes enjoying what happened on Wednesday with his wife and then start preparing for the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday.
Thompson said he does pay attention to the standings and that’s why he’s not even close to being satisfied, because they aren't even close to where they want to be.
Despite being 5-2-1 in their last eight games, Buffalo is six points out of the Eastern Conference’s final wild card spot. That in itself isn’t bad if the Sabres were in ninth place and six points out.
Instead, they have to stay hot themselves and leapfrog five other teams to get into the playoffs. The year the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup, they showed us that doing that isn’t impossible, but hoping five teams slump so you can get by them in the standings is a tall order and isn’t likely to happen.
The Sabres have 25 points. The East’s final wild card spot is being occupied by the Tampa Bay Lightning. The teams the Sabres would have to leapfrog to get into that spot are Tampa Bay, the New York Rangers, the Florida Panthers, the Montreal Canadiens, and the Caps.
There are many good things to look forward to with this team and Tage Thompson's pace for 66 goals and 126 points is one of them. Unfortunately, the goaltending of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Eric Comrie has let them down. Both could turn it around at any time, but the goalie of the future for the Sabres is probably playing for the Northeastern Huskies in Devon Levi.
Levi won the Mike Richter Award as College hockey’s best goalie last year going 21-10-1 with a 1.54 goals against and .952 save percentage. This season his numbers are still excellent but not near as good. He’s 7-6-3 with a 2.23 goals against and .930 save percentage. Levi’s goals against is 19th in the NCAA while his save percentage is sixth.
Erik Portillo's regression at Michigan is even worse, although there's a pretty good chance he'll elect for free agency since Adams always talks about Levi and rarely mentions Portillo.
Between Levi, Luukkonen, Portillo and Topias Leinonen, Levi is probably by far the best one and the guy Kevyn Adams is counting on to lead the Sabres for years to come.
No matter which one it is, they’ll be awfully glad to have Tage Thompson as a teammate.