The Buffalo Sabres are getting two big pieces back for tonight’s tough tilt against the Vegas Golden Knights, as the team tweeted before game time that forwards Tage Thompson and Rasmus Asplund are ready to return to the lineup.
Thompson missed the team’s last game, a 4-1 loss to Colorado, with an undisclosed injury that he sustained the night before in Arizona. Asplund was placed in COVID protocol, rendering him unavailable for the games against Arizona and Colorado.
One of the best stories in Buffalo this season is Thompson, who’s made the leap to potentially a true top-nine piece as the Sabres build down the line after being shifted to center by head coach Don Granato. He’s second on the team with 14 goals and has 29 points in 40 games. He’ll center the top line tonight between two players looking to have revenge games in Peyton Krebs and Alex Tuch.
Asplund, a second-round selection in 2016, has also now made the leap to full-time NHLer. He’s been a good two-way presence in the team’s bottom six, and he’s registered a respectable 16 points in 42 games (a 31-point pace).
Tage Thompson has become a really good player. Rifle shot.
Shows you have to have patience with some prospects.
Tage Thompson shows that Sabres fans can be as impetuous – if not more impetuous – than other fan bases. Don Granato deserves many kudos for recognizing his talents are better suited at the pivot. Few saw that in Tage.
Now if only he took some pointers from his dad on how to bang and scrap resulting in extra space out there, he’d take his game to another level.