Tage Thompson's ceiling

[Thallis]

Army's handling of the 1st round is among the league's best. He highly values 1st round picks but has also shown a willingness to bail on former 1st round prospects at the right time.

The 2010 draft was his first one as the head decisionmaker of the team and he immediately bailed on the previous year's 1st round pick (Rundblad) in order to acquire an additional 1st rounder to select both Schwartz and Tarasenko. There is a great chance that Rundblad wasn't his guy, but he turned out to be completely correct about moving on from him.

We didn't have our 1st in 2011 as a result of the Shatty/Stewart for EJ trade. We got 4 years of Stewart and 7 years of Shatty.

2012 was a dud, drafting Schmaltz

We didn't have our 2013 pick because we used it to acquire J-Bouw. We got 8 years of J-Bouw and he played a huge role in the 2019 Cup.

2014 was the Fabbri pick. hard to judge the pick with the way Fabbri's career went. He was fantastic on our 2016 WCF run, but then the knee injuries started.

2015 was the only time where Army gave up a 1st for a rental (the Ryan Miller trade). While this trade didn't remotely work out, it is pretty clear that Army intended to extend Miller if he had excelled here. He didn't, so we moved on (thankfully).

2016 was Tage (we traded up 3 spots to make sure we got him). Hindsight favors this draft a ton. Tage has outproduced every player picked between he and Kyrou and he held enough value for Buffalo to accept him in the ROR trade.

2017 was Thomas

2018 was the year Philly got our 1st round pick from the Schenn trade (we also gave them the 1st we got from trading Shatty the year before). Schenn had 3 years on his deal at the time of the trade and then we extended him for 8 more. We selected Bokk with the 1st rounder we got for trading Stastny. A year later, he is the centerpiece for Faulk, who was immediately given a 7 year extension (on top of the 1 remaining year of his deal).

We didn't have the 2019 pick because it was used in the ROR deal.

2020 was Neighbours

2021 was Bolduc

2022 was Snuggy

That's 13 years of data. We were a playoff team in 10 of those years, so it is reasonable to say that we were consistently potential buyers at the trade deadline. There was only 1 year where Army gave up a 1st for a rental. The other times he traded a 1st rounder, it was used to bring in long term players (Shatty, Stewart, J-Bouw, Schenn, and ROR). Three of those were clear successes that played a big role in a Cup win. Shatty (and to a lesser degree) Stewart were good while here, but we ultimately moved on from years later. There were three instances where he traded a former 1st round pick when the player was still clearly considered a prospect (Rundblad for Tarasenko, Tage as part of the ROR deal, and Bokk as the centerpiece for Faulk). All three were major successes.

We haven't had a top 10 pick under Army, but he's utilized our 2009-2019 1st round draft capital into Schwartz, Tarasenko, J-Bouw, Schenn, ROR, Thomas, Faulk, and Fabbri. We've held the last 3 picks and that trio of prospects comprises pretty much all of the excitement in our prospect pool. Army has his faults and there are some clear busts in this list. But all in all, he has demonstrated an exceptional ability to extract value out of the middle-end of the 1st round.

Wasn't 2010 mostly Jarmo? Those picks were called "Jarmo's parting gifts" at the time. Armstrong had to make the call, but I've always found it weird when people give him credit for those picks because Jarmo had more power than the typical head of scouting did.

 

[BlueDream]

Wasn't 2010 mostly Jarmo? Those picks were called "Jarmo's parting gifts" at the time. Armstrong had to make the call, but I've always found it weird when people give him credit for those picks because Jarmo had more power than the typical head of scouting did.

Yes and Bill Armstrong made all the other picks before he left. Not sure why there's a post crediting Doug for our drafting.

 

[Thallis]

Yes and Bill Armstrong made all the other picks before he left. Not sure why there's a post crediting Doug for our drafting.

Bill Armstrong was at least Doug's guy who he brought in. I don't think Bill would have had the same influence over the org that Jarmo did, imo

 

[Brian39]

Wasn't 2010 mostly Jarmo? Those picks were called "Jarmo's parting gifts" at the time. Armstrong had to make the call, but I've always found it weird when people give him credit for those picks because Jarmo had more power than the typical head of scouting did.

Our scouting team was heavily divided on whether we should pick Schwartz and Tarasenko. Army made the decision to move on from Jarmo's prior 1st round selection (Rundblad) to ensure that we landed both of them instead of simply choosing one. I don't know what to tell you if you don't think he deserves credit for that. I'm not sure there is anything that a GM can deserve more credit for in a draft than that.

 

[Thallis]

Our scouting team was heavily divided on whether we should pick Schwartz and Tarasenko. Army made the decision to move on from Jarmo's prior 1st round selection (Rundblad) to ensure that we landed both of them instead of simply choosing one. I don't know what to tell you if you don't think he deserves credit for that. I'm not sure there is anything that a GM can deserve more credit for in a draft than that.

I thought Jarmo was the one who thought we could get both and made the call for Schwartz based on that.

 

[Brian39]

Yes and Bill Armstrong made all the other picks before he left. Not sure why there's a post crediting Doug for our drafting.

Bill Armstrong had almost zero to do with turning 1st round picks into Schenn, ROR, J-Bouw, Faulk, Shatty, or Stewart. Those were trades, not draft picks. Schenn, ROR, J-Bouw and Faulk were 4 of the 8 players of value I praised Army for extracting out of the 1st round. We only would have gotten one of Schwartz/Tarasenko without Army moving on from a prospect and acquiring another 1st. That's 5 of the 8 players I was "crediting" Army for acquiring with 1st rounders.

The entire point of the post was about Army extracting value out of non-top-end 1st round assets and the large majority of that value has come from trading those picks (or resulting prospects) into long term roster players in their mid-late 20s.

You fully missed the point if your takeaway from that post was that Doug made good draft selections.

 

[STL fan in MN]

I thought Jarmo was the one who thought we could get both and made the call for Schwartz based on that.

There’d still need to be a trade to acquire the additional 1st rounder to be able to select both. Being the GM, Army was obviously the guy that called around looking for potential deals, eventually finding one with OTT.

Regarding the decision on if giving up on Rundblad to be able to have both Schwartz and Tarasenko was worth it, I’m not sure which of Army/Jarmo was pushing for that. But given Jarmo was the head amateur scout, he would likely have to agree that they prefer both Schwartz/Tarasenko. So my guess is both guys deserve big kudos for that move/decision. It was likely a group effort and in hindsight, it was a home run of a decision.

 

[Brian39]

I thought Jarmo was the one who thought we could get both and made the call for Schwartz based on that.

I wouldn't be surprised if he advocated for (or decided) to pick Schwartz at 14 when we were on the clock because he was confident that we could land both. But that confidence would be because the person in charge indicated that we could/would acquire the #16 pick. Would we have picked Tarasenko instead of Schwartz if Army hadn't been confident in the ability to acquire the #16 overall pick? I have no idea. I doubt anyone who wasn't at the table can honestly answer that.

My point isn't that any of the scouts would have made a mistake by picking one over the other and Army saved them from a mistake. Who we would have picked with only 1 pick isn't relevant to my point. My point is that there was an opportunity to snag two players that our scouts were high on instead of simply making the scouts sort it out and decide on one. Engineering a trade during the draft as the board falls in a way that allows you to snag two of your favored guys is a huge credit to the guy who made the trade.

It doesn't matter how much the scouts loved both guys if you only have one pick. Going out and trading a 19 year old prospect (who turned out to bust) for the ability to let your scouts pick both targets is fantastic asset management.

I'm not praising Army's talent evaluation of any of the players involved. Let's say Army had zero knowledge of the potentials of all 3 players in question (Rundblad/Schwartz/Tarasenko) and that it was 100% the scouts who said "if we could have 2 of the 3 we want Schwartz and Tarasenko." Taking that info mid-draft and immediately turning Rundlbad into a pick that allowed us to get both is fantastic work by Army. It is one example (out of several I talked about) where Army found a way to extract maximum long-term value out of a 1st round pick beyond simply being conservative and letting the scouts pick a guy when they have a pick.

There isn't enough talent in the back half of the 1st round to consistently land gems if all you do is hold onto every 1st, make your selection, and develop the prospect. Army hasn't done that and the net outcome has been a resounding success. I'm thrilled with the work Jarmo and Bill Armstrong did here. They deserve tons of credit. Everyone can deserve a lot of credit when a team has been as consistently good as the Blues.

 

[BlueDream]

Bill Armstrong had almost zero to do with turning 1st round picks into Schenn, ROR, J-Bouw, Faulk, Shatty, or Stewart. Those were trades, not draft picks. Schenn, ROR, J-Bouw and Faulk were 4 of the 8 players of value I praised Army for extracting out of the 1st round. We only would have gotten one of Schwartz/Tarasenko without Army moving on from a prospect and acquiring another 1st. That's 5 of the 8 players I was "crediting" Army for acquiring with 1st rounders.

The entire point of the post was about Army extracting value out of non-top-end 1st round assets and the large majority of that value has come from trading those picks (or resulting prospects) into long term roster players in their mid-late 20s.

You fully missed the point if your takeaway from that post was that Doug made good draft selections.

Then you should have made your post to talk more about the organization rather than Doug Armstrong because it missed the boat on about half of it.

By the way, Armstrong wouldn’t have moved Rundblad for a pick to take Tarasenko if he wasn’t getting intel from Jarmo on why he should do that. That wasn’t an Armstrong move, he’s just the one that took the advice and talked to Ottawa’s GM to get the deal done.

 

[bluesXwinXtheXcup]

looks like another patrik berglund to me

Dizee's prophecy...

Thompson has never been a center. That wasn't his main position in college. The original experiment of trying him at center in the AHL lasted less than a month before he was moved back to the wing...a position that he played the rest of the year, save perhaps for a handful of games in the short stint where he was sent back down to the AHL. He hasn't played that position at all in the NHL, either. That transition feels more like a prayer than a plan at this point, if it ever had any serious legs at all.

Fabbri at least played center in the OHL, but he has consistently looked overwhelmed defending low in the defensive zone at the NHL level, and has said himself that he "wasn't comfortable" with the thought of playing the position yet. Maybe Fabbri gets there down the road, but I doubt the Blues are eager to throw him into a position that requires more physicality game in and game out given his recent injury history. Even if they do, they're going to have to live with the fact that he'll need to be heavily sheltered since he'll be a defensive liability until that aspect of his game improves...something that the Blues do not typically like to do with their centers. Bottom line there is that he doesn't look like someone the Blues can count on to fill the position at a high level anytime soon.

Still think Tage is not a center?

He's never been a center....lol

 

[bluesXwinXtheXcup]

After further review...

You are all great at evaluating lol

 

[TK 421]

Dizee's prophecy...


Still think Tage is not a center?

He's never been a center....lol

This is on par with summoning Cthulhu, I sure hope you've drawn all your wards of aversion correctly or there could be dire consequences. He might even investigate other posts now looking for fellow heretics! You may have doomed us all with your carelessness sir but if you beg forgiveness now disaster may still be avoided. He knows not what he does mighty Cthulhu!

 

[TK 421]

Then you should have made your post to talk more about the organization rather than Doug Armstrong because it missed the boat on about half of it.

By the way, Armstrong wouldn’t have moved Rundblad for a pick to take Tarasenko if he wasn’t getting intel from Jarmo on why he should do that. That wasn’t an Armstrong move, he’s just the one that took the advice and talked to Ottawa’s GM to get the deal done.

Senators G.M. Bryan Murray was open to moving the 16th pick for Rundblad if his teams preferred player was off the board. It's speculated that Ottawa wanted Jaden Schwartz but with the Blues taking Schwartz at 14th Murray's Swedish amateur scouts were so enamoured with Rundblad that they wanted him rather than the risk Tarasenko represented. This was partially corraborrated later by Bryan Murray who confirmed, "It was a forward....". We basically got really, really lucky that those Senators scouts liked Rundblad so much because that was a crap pick that Doug managed to maneuver out from while landing the do over pick for Jarmo to correct his mistake and get the sniper we had been missing. I know you're familiar with all this I just wanted to flesh out the story once again for those that may not know it.

 

[Falco Lombardi]

Well the Sabres sure seem convinced last year was genuine.

7 year, 50 million dollar extension. Thats……certainly a decision

 

[Vladys Gumption]

Woof, that is an absurdly large contract for a guy who’s got one NHL season above 14 points.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

That can turn South very quickly. Hopefully it's not another Skinner caliber dud contract for Buffalo.

 

[Davimir Tarablad]

Buffalo sure is betting this isn’t another Ville Leino

 

[Bobby Bottle Service]

To lock up a bonafide #1 C for his prime years, that's a steal of a contract.

 

[Blueston]

To lock up a bonafide #1 C for his prime years, that's a steal of a contract.

If he is #1 center..

 

[BlueDream]

To lock up a bonafide #1 C for his prime years, that's a steal of a contract.

Paying a guy who has had one good season over 7x7 is a steal? Okay then.

Not a fan of that contract.

 

[STL fan in MN]

Quite risky but I could see it panning out.

 

[Reality Czech]

Buffalo sure is betting this isn’t another Ville Leino

In terms of height, Thompson is probably closer to two Ville Leinos.

Sure, it is a risk and may set an unpleasant precedent for GMs going forward but it makes sense from Buffalo's perspective. They've finally got a centerpiece they can build around and won't have to worry about reupping him later at perhaps an even higher price, or risk losing him altogether. Plus this is a sign he wants to be there, rather than a Skinner situation where they had to overpay to convince the guy to sign.

Sure they could have bridged him but it must be nice to just get it done long term to focus on other parts of the team.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Tage gettin’ paid!!

Good for him.

 

[Ridge1982]

I don’t care if he becomes the next Gretzky. A Cup was well worth it.

 

[Bobby Bottle Service]

Buffalo sure is betting this isn’t another Ville Leino

Some slight differences in that the Sabres already know TT instead of bringing in someone new. And the Sabres have already seen a season+ of TT playing at center before giving him the contract.

Darcy Regier overpaid a winger with the notion of converting him to a 1C.

GMKA is paying for an established 1C.