It doesn’t take long to notice that Buffalo Sabres center Tage Thompson stands out and has a lot to offer on the ice.
However, no coach in the National Hockey League knows how to get more out of the 25-year-old star than Sabres coach Don Granato.
Granato had a major hand in Thompson’s hockey upbringing, coaching him during the 2014-15 season in the U.S. National Team Development Program and then watching his rise from the University of Connecticut to the professional ranks and present-day NHL stardom.
“It’s nice to kind of come full circle,” said Thompson, who was born in Arizona and also spent time growing up in Orange, Conn., while his father, Brent, played professionally. “(Granato) saw me when I was younger and knew what kind of player I was back then and the potential I had. Reconnecting on this side of things and having him be our coach, I’m very thankful for all of the opportunities he’s given me.”
The type of player he has become is something special, something elite.
Thompson rightfully has earned a place among the NHL’s best young players, but he took his game to an even higher level last season while keeping the Sabres in the playoff race until the very end.
Thompson had a career-high 47 goals and 47 assists in 78 games. His 94 points were the most by a Buffalo player since Daniel Briere (95) in 2006-07.
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Even in a season of truly historic individual proportions in the context of the Sabres franchise, Thompson’s success didn’t surprise his coach.
“He kind of just broke a threshold,” Granato said. “You knew it was coming, obviously, with his skill-set, his work ethic and his competitiveness. You knew this was a guy that had such a strong foundation and he was going to start scoring in bunches when he broke the goal-scoring barrier. That’s exactly what has happened.”
Thompson’s initial breakout came in 2021-22 as he logged 38 goals and 68 points in 78 games as a top-line player alongside Jeff Skinner and Alex Tuch.
His game has skyrocketed since, becoming a first-time NHL All-Star and the first Sabre to score 40 goals since Skinner in 2018-19 this season.
How has it happened? A boost of confidence through opportunity.
“I think the biggest thing is just opportunity, getting a chance to play a lot of minutes, play in all situations, get power-play time,” Thompson said. “You can’t score without playing with some high-end players. We’ve got a lot of guys with great skill and hockey sense, so you’re seeing a lot of scoring throughout our whole roster. That type of setup benefits someone like me.”
Even before last season, the Sabres knew what they had in Thompson, inking him to a seven-year, $50-million contract extension in August 2022.
“Tage Thompson embodies the pride we expect from every player who wears the Buffalo Sabres sweater,” Sabres GM Kevyn Adams said then. “His success last season is a testament to his unrelenting dedication to his craft and commitment to bettering the team both on and off the ice, which we believe will help us reach even greater heights moving forward.”
Granato knew all about Thompson’s work ethic, which has helped him blast off since breaking through the aforementioned goal-scoring barrier.
“The foundation of work before he hit the success that everybody’s noticing (over the past two seasons) was so strong that he could maintain it,” Granato said. “I know the concern and the talk last season was, ‘Was last season a one-off? Can he repeat that?’ We felt he could exceed it, and I feel he can exceed what he’s doing now because of the work he puts in.”
Becoming an elite player, especially one with a 6-foot-6, 220-pound frame, can take time.
It did for Thompson, but his many experiences with and against elite players — including those with the likes of Auston Matthews, Matthew Tkachuk and Clayton Keller on Granato’s team at “The Program” — only made his transitions to the next level and a more recent move to the center position easier.
A conversation with Granato before the 2021-22 season helped Thompson realize his potential as an offensive player in the league, and that he could realize it much sooner than later. He did just that, all while working to improve the roundedness of his game toward becoming an even more trustworthy 200-foot player.
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“Having gone through that program, and the adversity and challenges those players face, I think it made it a lot easier for Tage to face challenges once he got to the NHL,” Granato told The Buffalo News in February. “I think he was very well-prepared to face challenges knowing that, you know, enduring it and fighting through it, there was going to be another side.”
His teammates have come to realize that, too.
“He’s really grown into himself as a person, and it’s been fantastic for me to watch that maturation process happen,” Sabres captain Kyle Okposo said. “He’s only going to continue to get better as a player as he continues to grow as a person.”
