Insider Foresees One Scenario That Would Lead to Tage Thompson Trade

Despite back-to-back impressive wins, the Buffalo Sabres once again find themselves at the bottom of the Eastern Comference standings, in real danger of extending their league-record playoff drought to 15 seasons. That has the vultures circling again. Even star center Tage Thompson hasn’t been immune from the trade talk this time around. But insider Elliotte Friedman, on his 32 Thoughts podcast, has reiterated what we’ve been hearing, that the Sabres have no intention of trading Thompson… with one exception:

The Buffalo Sabres do NOT want to trade Tage Thompson. Ze-ro. ZERO… That’s how little Buffalo wants to trade (him). Now, if at some point, Tage Thompson wants to force the issue, at some point, and that’s not now — it’s different.

Friedman says the Sabres should be playing it just like this: “If (the player) wants to force the issue, you say, ‘Okay, you forced the issue. We want everyone to know that we did this because the player wanted it… If he leaves, it’s not because we wanted him to leave.’… I just think that when you have great players, you keep them.”

And make no mistake, that is exactly what Buffalo wants to do. Thompson has a full five years remaining (up including this one) on his seven-year, $49.9 million contract ($7.1M AAV).

Thompson is off to another strong start this season, with 17 points on nine goals and eight assists in 19 games. He has two 40-goal seasons in the past three years, and has averaged 39.5 goals over a four-year stretch. He’s right around that pace once again this season.

Tage Thompson SHOVED Alex DeBrincat off the puck, and then made a BEAUTY spin-pass to Mattias Samuelsson for the OT winner 😭😤 pic.twitter.com/HYtX6GHco6
— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) November 16, 2025

Once again, if the Sabres can’t miraculously turn this season around, fans have to be asking themselves if another top talent is going to want out of town as so many others have done in recent years (see: Eichel, Jack; O’Reilly, Ryan; and more recently, Peterka, JJ).

Interestingly, Sabres GM Kevyn Adams was seen scouting the Toronto Maple Leafs/LA Kings game last week at Scotiabank Arena. It is known that the Leafs are desperate for top-six help. But we’d be highly skeptical that they could offer back anything that would move the needle that much for Buffalo.