Sabres Sign Tage Thompson to a 7 year 50 Million Dollar Contract Extension

[Curt]

5 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

He's being paid as a 25-30g, 65pt center. Less and we're overpaying, more and it's value. 

Your numbers don’t add up.  Did you mean it to be 55, or 65 points?

[LGR4GM]

34 minutes ago, Curt said:

Your numbers don’t add up.  Did you mean it to be 55, or 65 points?

They add up. 30g, 35a gets you to 65pts.

[LGR4GM]

5 hours ago, dudacek said:

I don’t think so.

The contract doesn’t kick in until 23/24. If it were in effect this year, it would rank Tage 29th among centres. Last year, Tage ranked 8th among centres in goals, 23rd in points.

I’d say good value exists as long as he is statistically producing, say, 25th to 40th among NHL centres. Based on last year’s totals, 27 goals and 64 points is fair value.

But the point of this deal for the Sabres is that as salaries rise around the league, Tage’s will not. Many players will pass him. In 3 or 4 years, he may only need to rank 40-50th statistically to be at fair value, and at the end of the deal, assuming the cap behaves like it usually does, that may be 60-75th.

Exactly

[Curt]

4 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

They add up. 30g, 35a gets you to 65pts.

You wrote 25 goals, 30 assists, 65 points. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[LGR4GM]

21 minutes ago, Curt said:

You wrote 25 goals, 30 assists, 65 points. 🤷🏻‍♂️

No I didn't. 

6 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

He's being paid as a 25-30g, 65pt center. Less and we're overpaying, more and it's value. 

See.

[Curt]

47 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

No I didn't. 

See.

Haha.  Yes, I see.  I can’t read real good.  Sorry about that.

[LGR4GM]

11 minutes ago, Curt said:

Haha.  Yes, I see.  I can’t read real good.  Sorry about that.

Lol, it's all good

[MattPie]

To pick a TOTALLY RANDOM example, Ryan O'Reilly's cap hit is $7.5M and he put up 21g 58p last year. There were ~22 Centers that were around a point a game last season. Tage isn't getting paid like a #1 star center.

[Zamboni]

28 minutes ago, MattPie said:

To pick a TOTALLY RANDOM example, Ryan O'Reilly's cap hit is $7.5M and he put up 21g 58p last year. There were ~22 Centers that were around a point a game last season. Tage isn't getting paid like a #1 star center.

Certain posters are not gonna believe… that was just a totally random example lol

Edited September 5, 2022 by Zamboni

[PerreaultForever]

11 hours ago, dudacek said:

I don’t think so.

The contract doesn’t kick in until 23/24. If it were in effect this year, it would rank Tage 29th among centres. Last year, Tage ranked 8th among centres in goals, 23rd in points.

I’d say good value exists as long as he is statistically producing, say, 25th to 40th among NHL centres. Based on last year’s totals, 27 goals and 64 points is fair value.

But the point of this deal for the Sabres is that as salaries rise around the league, Tage’s will not. Many players will pass him. In 3 or 4 years, he may only need to rank 40-50th statistically to be at fair value, and at the end of the deal, assuming the cap behaves like it usually does, that may be 60-75th.

So what you're saying is the comparables I listed are underpaid? 

I'm not really following the logic. Sam Reinhart puts up 82 points, he makes 6.5 million. Factoring in a small Florida tax discount it's a comparable salary so why doesn't Tage have to put up comparable points for those deals to have equal value?

[PerreaultForever]

3 hours ago, MattPie said:

To pick a TOTALLY RANDOM example, Ryan O'Reilly's cap hit is $7.5M and he put up 21g 58p last year. There were ~22 Centers that were around a point a game last season. Tage isn't getting paid like a #1 star center.

O'Reilly is an interesting comparison for obvious reasons but there's 2 big differences. One, he's near the end of this contract and has a proven track record of consistency and two, he's a 2 way center paid for his defensive prowess as well as his scoring stats. Tage has one season of solid offensive numbers. He MAY live up to this contract, but after Skinner, I guess I'm just reluctant to pay anybody after one good season. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

New article in the Athletic about the dangers of signing players to big $ contract after a sudden breakout with a career high shooting %.

https://theathletic.com/3559089/2022/09/02/nhl-contracts-shooting-percentage-tage-thompson/

Here are some excerpts

Quote

 Thompson’s success last season is also a testament to the remarkable growth in his finishing ability. Coming into 2021-22, he had scored 12 goals on 230 shots at five-on-five at the NHL level, a 5.2 shooting percentage. Last year he tallied 24 five-on-five goals on 170 shots, a 14.1 percent clip, nearly triple his previous average.

Quote

Maybe there’s something to those justifications, and perhaps the Sabres will have no cause to regret their splashy decision. Yet when we look at recent NHL history, we find that time and again major-league teams (and, as often as not, Buffalo) have bet on players during peak shooting percentage years and been disappointed.

Then they give 20 examples of how contracts such as Thompsons work out and it isn't good.

14.  Drew Stafford - and we know how that worked out.  He scored 31 (17.3 shooting %) in 62 games at 25 years old and we gave him a big $ 4 year deal.  He scored at 8.8% through out the deal.  

3. Jeff Skinner - 13.8 % in his contract year and thus JBot's big $ reward.  To say he stunk the next couple of seasons is an understatement, but he rebounded nicely last year, but still .......

1. Ville Leino

Quote

He got his big break with the Flyers as a 27-year-old. He scored 19 goals and 53 points, with the vast majority of those goals coming at five-on-five, where he converted on 14.7 percent of his shots. After years of near-irrelevance, he became a top target in free agency in the summer of 2011.

5 on 5 shooting % with the Sabres over the next 3 seasons was 7.3%

 

I'm not saying TnT's contract won't work out, but this article gives serious food for thought.  

[sabresparaavida]

4 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

So what you're saying is the comparables I listed are underpaid? 

I'm not really following the logic. Sam Reinhart puts up 82 points, he makes 6.5 million. Factoring in a small Florida tax discount it's a comparable salary so why doesn't Tage have to put up comparable points for those deals to have equal value?

When Sam Reinhart signed that contract, he had a Career high of 65 points, it’s only after he signed that he reached 82 points.

[Curt]

5 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

So what you're saying is the comparables I listed are underpaid? 

I'm not really following the logic. Sam Reinhart puts up 82 points, he makes 6.5 million. Factoring in a small Florida tax discount it's a comparable salary so why doesn't Tage have to put up comparable points for those deals to have equal value?

At $6.5M, Reinhart is underpaid for 82 points.  Hypothetically, if Reinhart is going to put up 82 points every season, Thompson would need to put up even more points than that for the contract to be equal value in any given season.

But that doesn’t mean that Thompson needs to put up point per game seasons in order to be worth his contract.  His contract value will not be judged in comparison to Reinhart’s alone, but against the NHL as a whole, as @dudacek laid out.

[LGR4GM]

6 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

So what you're saying is the comparables I listed are underpaid? 

I'm not really following the logic. Sam Reinhart puts up 82 points, he makes 6.5 million. Factoring in a small Florida tax discount it's a comparable salary so why doesn't Tage have to put up comparable points for those deals to have equal value?

 

2 hours ago, sabresparaavida said:

When Sam Reinhart signed that contract, he had a Career high of 65 points, it’s only after he signed that he reached 82 points.

And Reinhart signed the contract in a different year. 

6 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

New article in the Athletic about the dangers of signing players to big $ contract after a sudden breakout with a career high shooting %.

https://theathletic.com/3559089/2022/09/02/nhl-contracts-shooting-percentage-tage-thompson/

Here are some excerpts

Then they give 20 examples of how contracts such as Thompsons work out and it isn't good.

14.  Drew Stafford - and we know how that worked out.  He scored 31 (17.3 shooting %) in 62 games at 25 years old and we gave him a big $ 4 year deal.  He scored at 8.8% through out the deal.  

3. Jeff Skinner - 13.8 % in his contract year and thus JBot's big $ reward.  To say he stunk the next couple of seasons is an understatement, but he rebounded nicely last year, but still .......

1. Ville Leino

5 on 5 shooting % with the Sabres over the next 3 seasons was 7.3%

 

I'm not saying TnT's contract won't work out, but this article gives serious food for thought.  

Holy crap ppl. This article has been posted 3 times now

[LGR4GM]

On 9/2/2022 at 8:38 AM, Cascade Youth said:

Here is a more data-driven (sort of) analysis (paywall):

https://theathletic.com/3559089/2022/09/02/nhl-contracts-shooting-percentage-tage-thompson/?source=user_shared_article

 

 

On 9/2/2022 at 4:02 PM, dudacek said:

The athletic with good fuel for the skeptics: a list of 20 times a player was signed following an outlier shooting % year and the contract blew up in the team’s face:

https://theathletic.com/3559089/2022/09/02/nhl-contracts-shooting-percentage-tage-thompson/

You’ll recognize the names Leino, Skinner and Stafford. (Sorry, @eleven) 

IMO most of the players don’t match Tage’s profile in that they weren’t just starting their careers, but the author says it is hard to find examples of players who maintained that kind of leap in their shooting.

Stop posting the sh% article from the athletic already. 

Especially since the article is bad

[LGR4GM]

6 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

O'Reilly is an interesting comparison for obvious reasons but there's 2 big differences. One, he's near the end of this contract and has a proven track record of consistency and two, he's a 2 way center paid for his defensive prowess as well as his scoring stats. Tage has one season of solid offensive numbers. He MAY live up to this contract, but after Skinner, I guess I'm just reluctant to pay anybody after one good season. 

Skinner spent 2 years under Krueger. He had his worst and 2nd worst sh% under that useless coach. If Jeff gets 30g 30a for the rest of the contract, I'll call it a win

[LGR4GM]

6 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

 

1. Ville Leino

5 on 5 shooting % with the Sabres over the next 3 seasons was 7.3%

 

I'm not saying TnT's contract won't work out, but this article gives serious food for thought.  

Leino is a bad comparison. 

He was 27 in his supposed breakout year. In every year prior, his sh% was very consistent with 7.8, 8.7, and 7.4. As important, Leino had never cracked 100 shots before his breakout and never would again. He had a grand total of 117 shots in that year with a 16.2sh% 

So you had a guy with about 50 more shots than normal and who was shooting basically double his career sh% to that point. 

Now compare to Tage. First Tage can play center because he did it this year but let's do numbers only. Tage had his breakout at 24 not 27. He went 5.5, 6.5, and 8.3sh% in the 3 prior years. The only other year over 100 shots is the only other year he played more than half a season. As noted, Leino never came close to 200 shots and tage hit 253. 

Now his 15% this year is almost double his pervious year, however that 15% accounts for almost half of his shots ever taken. Again, I think if it regressed to his avg of 11.6 that's normal but I'm curious if it will. So we have to believe that 24yr old Tage managed to shoot about 50% of the total shots he's ever taken at a sh% so high he can't repeat anything in the ballpark and it just doesn't add up.  

Tage shooting about 250 shots at 12% makes the contract work. If Tage stays at 15% and 250 shots, it's really good. Time will tell. 

This article is bad. It makes 1 variable the be all end all without any context. Did you know Skinner was at his worse under Krueger? Tage's move to center not mentioned. Stafford had 4 hat tricks that year and if you calculate his sh% to that point, he should have repeated. It's a really surface level take that doesn't deserve 3 ppl posting it over 3 days. 

[dudacek]

9 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

So what you're saying is the comparables I listed are underpaid? 

I'm not really following the logic. Sam Reinhart puts up 82 points, he makes 6.5 million. Factoring in a small Florida tax discount it's a comparable salary so why doesn't Tage have to put up comparable points for those deals to have equal value?

Based on last year (15 goals, 59 points), Matt Barzal was paid pretty much at exactly market value for points and overpaid for goals. He was 29th among centres in salary, 34th in points and 68th in goals.

Not sure about the rest because none of them are centres and I haven’t crunched the numbers for wingers.

But given Sam was 26th in the entire league in points and Connor had 47 goals, based on production, I’d say it’s pretty safe to say those two were underpaid.

Edited September 5, 2022 by dudacek

[LGR4GM]

What if Tage keeps getting better. Maybe 68 points is his floor.

[dudacek]

17 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

What if Tage keeps getting better. Maybe 68 points is his floor.

I’ll say it again:

• 1st season 41 NHL games (emergency NHL recall, limited role): .22 points per game
• 2nd season 65 (NHL spare part, should have been in Rochester): .18 points per game
• 3rd season 38 (taxi squad under Ralph, regular under Donnie): .37 points per game
• 4th season 1st half 38 (emerging top 6 usage): .76 points per game
• 4th season 2nd half 40 (1st line centre): 1.0 points per game

The trend line is pretty clear

[Cascade Youth]

5 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Leino is a bad comparison. 

He was 27 in his supposed breakout year. In every year prior, his sh% was very consistent with 7.8, 8.7, and 7.4. As important, Leino had never cracked 100 shots before his breakout and never would again. He had a grand total of 117 shots in that year with a 16.2sh% 

So you had a guy with about 50 more shots than normal and who was shooting basically double his career sh% to that point. 

Now compare to Tage. First Tage can play center because he did it this year but let's do numbers only. Tage had his breakout at 24 not 27. He went 5.5, 6.5, and 8.3sh% in the 3 prior years. The only other year over 100 shots is the only other year he played more than half a season. As noted, Leino never came close to 200 shots and tage hit 253. 

Now his 15% this year is almost double his pervious year, however that 15% accounts for almost half of his shots ever taken. Again, I think if it regressed to his avg of 11.6 that's normal but I'm curious if it will. So we have to believe that 24yr old Tage managed to shoot about 50% of the total shots he's ever taken at a sh% so high he can't repeat anything in the ballpark and it just doesn't add up.  

Tage shooting about 250 shots at 12% makes the contract work. If Tage stays at 15% and 250 shots, it's really good. Time will tell. 

This article is bad. It makes 1 variable the be all end all without any context. Did you know Skinner was at his worse under Krueger? Tage's move to center not mentioned. Stafford had 4 hat tricks that year and if you calculate his sh% to that point, he should have repeated. It's a really surface level take that doesn't deserve 3 ppl posting it over 3 days. 

Tage also creates his own shots by using his elite length and reach.

[PerreaultForever]

It still comes down to one fundamental point and that is: it's based on ONE season. 

So, you can believe, as the Sabres obviously do, that he has developed and matured and that was his break out season and he will continue to play similar or perhaps even better hockey. If he does, it's a good contract and may become a great contract for the team .

Or you can believe that he had a lucky fluke year and isn't really that good in which case he will be overpaid. It's a possibility. As a fan you won't want to believe in this possibility, but it is a possibility.

Or lastly, you can be uncertain of what he will be (which I am) and so you can believe the contract was premature. So as a fan you end up hoping for the first but fearing the second. So I view it as a gamble. 

The stats can't disprove this as the sample size and body of work isn't large enough. 

[PerreaultForever]

6 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Skinner spent 2 years under Krueger. He had his worst and 2nd worst sh% under that useless coach. If Jeff gets 30g 30a for the rest of the contract, I'll call it a win

You're ignoring the fact that Skinner has never had more than 63 points. No matter how you look at it, he is grossly overpaid. 

I think Krueger caused covid, inflation and high gas prices too. It's his fault for everything. 

[PerreaultForever]

3 hours ago, dudacek said:

Based on last year (15 goals, 59 points), Matt Barzal was paid pretty much at exactly market value for points and overpaid for goals. He was 29th among centres in salary, 34th in points and 68th in goals.

Not sure about the rest because none of them are centres and I haven’t crunched the numbers for wingers.

But given Sam was 26th in the entire league in points and Connor had 47 goals, based on production, I’d say it’s pretty safe to say those two were underpaid.

Well I was trying to find comparable salaries.  Miller's contract is the only current comparable and that was already discussed. I personally find it hard to compare Tage to other players since it was an oddly surprising season for him at a new position. I'm really not sure WHO he compares to if anyone in terms of style and play.