Don’t expect the Sabres to trade Thompson, Dahlin any time soon
The Buffalo Sabres are the owners of the longest playoff drought in the NHL by quite a distance, as they have not appeared in the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2011.
So far this season, the Sabres are 11-11-4, good enough to have them in the picture in a tightly-packed Eastern Conference, but still leaving them stuck in seventh place in the Atlantic Division.
There’s been no shortage of discourse and rumor mill fodder surrounding the status of the team’s two star players, forward Tage Thompson and defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, as it relates to their level of contentment toiling in relative NHL obscurity.
On Wednesday’s episode of Morning Cuppa Hockey, host Jonny Lazarus and co-host and former NHL defenseman Colby Cohen were joined by Sportsnet NHL insider Elliotte Friedman to discuss where things stand for the possibility of Buffalo parting with either of its two biggest stars.
Jonny Lazarus: “We haven’t seen Tage Thompson play a playoff game yet. I think that’s something that hockey fans are starving for. And at some point, you gotta think maybe Tage is a guy that’s highly sought after. But it seems like he has no intention of leaving Buffalo. Have you heard anything in regards to Tage and the Sabres?”
Elliotte Friedman: “That’s something I check probably every few weeks. If Buffalo is really out of it at the end of this year, and they keep sort of battling – right now they’re on a good streak, right? So they refuse to give up. I think that’s a credit to their players. It would be easy to give up, and they haven’t. I’ve checked and I’ve been told no. He hasn’t asked out.
Is he frustrated? Yeah. But I think everybody there is frustrated, including the fans, but he hasn’t asked out, I always believe that this was a year where, unless they were completely out of it by the deadline, the conversation would be at the end of the season. I think at the end of last year, both (Rasmus) Dahlin and Thompson had kind of indicated they really needed to see improvement this year. This year had to be better.
I know there were some rumors that last year that maybe Dahlin wanted out right away. Those weren’t true. I don’t think he’d given that short a timeline, but I think both players had indicated they wanted this year to be better. And so I always check in, especially after the year started the way it did. I just don’t think that they were at that point right now. And so at this point in time, I think Thompson remains focused on the Sabres.
The other thing, too with Dahlin, he had a really difficult time in the summer with his fiancée when she got sick and the Sabres were among several people, including the league and the NHLPA, who really took good care of them. So I think he remembers that too. So I don’t think right now there’s anything to that and they’re on a little good streak right now. So you kind of leave it alone.”
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…