The Buffalo Sabres had a roller-coaster season in 2025-26, but their 45-15-5 record at the end of the season resulted in Buffalo’s Atlantic Division title. The Sabres got to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs by beating the Boston Bruins in Round 1, but they lost in seven games to the Montreal Canadiens in the second round.
But in this year’s collection of TheHockeyNews.com’s grades for Buffalo players, coaching and management will largely be positive. When you finally end your franchise’s decade-and-a-half playoff drought, you earn some positive reactions from fans, friends and media. And that’s what was true of the Sabres this past season.
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Buffalo is far from a perfect team, but most, if not all of their players deserve an above-average grade for what they did in 2025-26. And in this particular file, we’re looking at the Sabres’ top player – star winger Tage Thompson:
Tage Thompson
Position: Right Winger
Grade: A
The Skinny: Thompson has been Buffalo’s most important offense-producer, and this past season, he was the Sabres’ top offense-producer, with 40 goals and 81 points in 81 games. That’s not the best point-total in Thompson’s nine-year NHL career – that came in 2022-23, when he generated 94 points in 78 games – but Thompson hit the 40-goal mark last season, doing so for the third time in his career.
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Thompson’s salary cap hit of $7.1 million – which runs for another four seasons – makes him one of the league’s best financial bargains. But make no mistake – he’s still under tremendous pressure to get Buffalo deeper in the post-season. And that’s not going to be easy. In fact, in a drastically-improved Atlantic Division, it will be extremely difficult just to get into the playoffs.
Still, if Thompson continues thriving as a play-finisher and a major offense contributor, the Sabres figure to be a playoff team next year. The bigger question about Thompson concerns what he’ll do in the 2027 post-season. This past spring, Thompson generated 10 assists and 15 points in 13 playoff games while earning 19:58 of ice time in his first-ever NHL post-season. Sabres coach Lindy Ruff gave Thompson 19:15 of ice time in the 2025-26 regular-season, also a career-best for Thompson. So he’s made the most of his increasing usage.
This past year was the first year Thompson played 81 games or more, and now that veteran winger Alex Tuch has departed for the Washington Capitals and defenseman Bowen Byram has been traded to the Chicago Blackhawks, they’re going to rely more than ever on Thompson to produce as much offense as possible.
Thompson will be Buffalo’s top-line winger for the foreseeable future, but if the Sabres are going to push deeper in the 2027 playoffs and beyond, they’re going to need Thompson to evolve into even more of a difference-maker. Five of Thompson’s 25 career regular-season game-winning goals came in 2025-26, and if that number increases next year, the Sabres are going to be even happier with Thompson’s contract than they are today.
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Thompson isn’t a top-10 talent in the league, but he ranked No. 32 in this year’s ranking of the NHL top players, and the Sabres are only going to go as far as he and Buffalo’s other core members carry them. Thompson is currently in his peak years, but he’s still got room to grow his game. And if he can elevate to a 50-goal-scorer – which certainly isn’t out of the question for him – Thompson could lead Buffalo to a championship victory.
Thompson did virtually everything asked of him in 2025-26. And although the Sabres’ season ended sooner than they’d hoped it would’ve, Buffalo brass have to be pleased with the Sabres’ season in the macro, and Thompson’s season in the micro.
And that’s why Thompson deserves an ‘A’ from us. He’s delivered on just about every count, and he should get his flowers for helping power Buffalo to desperately longed-for results.
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