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LeBrun: Tage Thompson’s Sabers star turn is a reminder not to judge NHL trades too soon

One of the things I’ll never forget from my years doing this job is the night the Los Angeles Kings ended their 45-year Stanley Cup drought in June 2012 and the way general manager Dean Lombardi began his media availability.

Before any of us could get a question in, the architect of that championship squad wanted to get something out.

“Let’s get something straight here. Whenever a team has won, there’s some guys that don’t get appreciated,” Lombardi said as his Kings players celebrated on the ice around him at a rocking Staples Center. “You have to give a lot of credit to (former Kings GM) Dave Taylor; I started out with three darn good players in (Dustin) Brown, (Anze) Kopitar and (Jonathan) Quick. Let’s not ever forget what he did. And let’s not forget (former coach) Terry Murray, too. He stabilized this franchise and gave us credibility. There’s some unsung heroes here that need to be appreciated.”

It was a very classy thing to do at a moment when Lombardi had attained his own highest personal glory in the sport, wanting to point out that it wasn’t all him.

I was reminded of this moment from 11 years ago when I watched Tage Thompson score a hat trick on Tuesday — yet another magical offensive night for the Buffalo Sabers star forward, who has become one of the league’s must-watch stars.

It’s another example of how sometimes it takes longer than we think to know whether an NHL move will pay off.

The Sabers traded for Thompson four and a half years ago. The full blockbuster deal went like this: Ryan O’Reilly to St. Louis in exchange for Patrik Berglund, Vladimir Sobotka, Tage Thompson, a 2019 first-round pick (which ended up being 31st overall, Ryan Johnson) and a 2021 second-round pick (Ben Roger).

Berglund was an important part of the deal, but he walked away from his NHL contract and went home to Sweden, later telling a Swedish media outlet that he needed to do it to find happiness again in his life. And who can begrudge him for that?

But it was a tough pill to swallow at the time for the Sabres, obviously.

Thompson was the young player that then-GM Jason Botterill was focused on in those trade talks with the Blues.

“Like any multi-player trade, there are lots of names bandied back and forth. Throughout the process, Jason was adamant that Tage be included as part of the deal,” Randy Sexton, assistant GM with the Sabers at the time, told The Athletic Wednesday.

“His conviction is proving to be well-placed,” Sexton added.

Thompson’s breakout didn’t come until last year, a 38-goal campaign in his fifth NHL season — almost two years after Botterill was fired and replaced by current GM Kevyn Adams.

So let’s take stock of that July 1, 2018, trade again now almost five years later:

O’Reilly was instrumental in leading the Blues to their first Stanley Cup championship in June 2019, winning the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP along the way. By any measure, even today with Thompson’s remarkable ascension, Blues GM Doug Armstrong would make the move for him again. A Cup is a Cup is a Cup is a Cup. And O’Reilly, the Blues’ captain, has been a tremendous presence since arriving there.

Thompson, meanwhile, has finally developed into the talented power forward he was drafted to be, going 26th overall to St. Louis in the 2016 NHL draft.

So what we have here is what NHL GMs actually strive for but rarely achieve: a trade that gave each franchise what it needed. The Blues won’t win the Cup at the front end without this trade. The Sabers have an emerging superstar at the back end.

So credit to Botterill, now an assistant GM in Seattle, for making the trade to begin with. He got hammered for it for years, especially after O’Reilly’s Cup win.

Credit to head coach Don Granato for helping unlock Thompson’s talents. Granato had coached Thompson with the US National Team Development Program, and clearly that preexisting relationship has paid off here.

Credit to Adams, the current GM, not only for seeing Granato’s ability to develop players, which is why he elevated him to head coach, but also for signing Thompson to a seven-year, $50-million deal on Aug. 30, a full year ahead of Thompson’s current deal expiring. I remember thinking to myself that was quite a leap of faith.

Never mind. I was wrong.

Now on pace for 60-plus goals this season, by the time that extension kicks in next year at a $7.1 million average annual value, it’s going to feel like a bargain. That extension could save Sabers owners Terry and Kim Pegula some $30 million overall if you figure Thompson could be a $10 million player in this current marketplace.

So to recap, it takes a village sometimes. The former GM made the trade, the current coach helped unlock the player, the current GM appears to have made a brilliant move in extending him when he did.

And, of course, the player himself played a part.

“In credit to Tage, two things about him that you need to know is that he’s an unbelievable human being (and) he loves hockey,” Coyotes GM Bill Armstrong, who drafted Thompson in St. Louis when he was AGM and ran the draft there, told The Athletic‘s Michael Russo recently. “And so, a lot of times now, you see him, and it looks so natural for him. He could do the same thing before. He just wasn’t strong enough in that body to be able to hold people off. Now he is. And when you see him come through the neutral zone and hold the pucks out, there’s no way anybody can get to him.

“He’s so strong at it, and his confidence has grown. He knows, when he gets the puck in certain areas, you’re not going to stop him. But when we were in a scouting meeting, one of our scouts said, one of the management had asked us, ‘Well, where do you see all our prospects fit in?’ And one guy said, ‘Well, I see having Parayko one-timing on one side and Tage one-timing on the other side. And nobody’s going to touch us.’ So it never came to fruition. But we always knew he had that, because at UConn, you could see it. You could see slight glimpses of it. And when he went to the program in the summer to try out for the world juniors, you could see it again. Just couldn’t hold it for very long.”

In the end, this is a trade that reminds me a lot of that Dallas-Calgary blockbuster in December 1995, which saw veteran Joe Nieuwendyk go to the Stars and youngster Jarome Iginla go to the Flames. The Stars probably never won the Cup in 1999 without Nieuwendyk. Iginla? He had a Hall of Fame career in Calgary.

It was a rare win-win trade. Which is now how this O’Reilly-Thompson deal is also looking like.

(Top photo: Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

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