Buffalo Sabres sign Tage Thompson to seven-year contract extension

The Buffalo Sabres have signed forward Tage Thompson to a seven-year contract extension, the club announced Tuesday afternoon.

Thompson’s new deal, which carries a $7.14 million cap hit, will take effect with the 2023–24 season and will run through the end of 2029–30. The 24-year-old center was already under contract for 2022–23 at a $1.4 million cap hit.

Acquired from the St. Louis Blues in 2018 as part of the Ryan O’Reilly trade, Thompson struggled to produce regularly in his first three seasons with the Sabres before exploding out of the gate in 2021–22.

Thompson led the Sabres with 38 goals and 68 points in 78 games in 2021–22, forming a dangerous partnership with Jeff Skinner on the team’s top line. The Phoenix, Arizona product more than doubled his career goal and point totals last season.

The Blues originally selected Thompson in the first round (No. 26 overall) of the 2016 NHL Draft. The 6’7″, 218-pound forward spent half of the 2017–18 season in the NHL, scoring three goals and nine points in 41 games with the Blues, before being traded alongside Patrik Berglund, Vladimir Sobotka, and two draft picks the following summer.

While O’Reilly was a key component in the Blues’ 2019 Stanley Cup championship, Thompson racked up 15 goals and 26 points in 104 games with the Sabres in the three seasons immediately following the trade. But he ended up scoring more goals and points than O’Reilly in the same number of games (78) last season.

Thompson is now the only member of the Sabres whose contract extends beyond that of Skinner, who will earn an average of $9 million through 2026–27. With Thompson signed, the Sabres’ biggest pending RFA next summer is now Dylan Cozens, who scored 13 goals and 38 points in 79 games last season.