I'll go back to last summer. Traverse City Tournament he played exceptionally well. Prospect camp he played well also. I personally thought he was the odds on favorite to win the 3RD position going into camp and was a total dumpster fire. He was quite literally awful in camp. He showed some of the flashes of why he's been so successful with some great rushes up the ice and a couple of nice bombs from the point, but he looked like he was handling the puck with a pool noodle. Constantly misplaying it, making terrible decisions with the puck, pinching when he should've stayed home, staying home when he should've pinched, falling down several times on pivots....everything. Vince Dunn outplayed him badly and won the job and hasn't looked back.
I can't really comment on his AHL season as I haven't seen many games. Production is not what I'd hoped for, but he's been injured, scratched, and moved to another organization so I'm willing to cut him some slack this season. Hopefully his experience this year in camp will be helpful going forward and calm him down so he can really show off his ability in training camp. He just turned 22 less than a month ago so I still have high hopes for him, but I would not classify this season as a step in the right direction for him, though it's an important one in the long run. Probably the first time in his life he was truly challenged. We'll see how he responds next year.
EDIT: Looking back at it, I didn't realize how insanely productive Thompson was in Traverse City last year. Tournament leader in scoring and compliments from Jax about his PK ability. Have not been very impressed with him lately, but that's a good reminder of how good he can be. Outscored DeBrincat in the same tournament. That's pretty impressive.