Tage Thompson is a superstar

[Ben White]

Probably the same in all sports:

G.O.A.T. > Trans-Generational > Multi-Generational > Generational > Superstar > Star > Local Star > Quality Player > Average Player > Body

G.O.A.T ..... Greatest of All Time (1) Gretzky

Trans-Generational ..... Best player of all time who is not the G.O.A.T. (1) Lemieux, Orr

Multi-Generational ..... Best player of at least two generations (< 5) Howe

Generational ..... Best player of his prime (around 10 years) (< 10) McDavid, Jagr, Crosby, Ovie, Forsberg, Lafleur, Richard, Lidstrom, Bourque, Hull, Harvey, Esposito (+ a few more)

Superstar ..... Well-known to sports fans generally outside of hockey players such as Sakic, Yzerman, Coffey, Karlsson, MacKinnon, Makar, Draisaitl, Matthews, Messier, Selanne, Fedorov, Bure, Bossy, Lindros, Mogilny (briefly)

Star .... Well-known to most hockey fans

Players such as Iginla, Naslund, Bertuzzi, Pettersson, Hughes, St Louis, Hossa, Sundin, Kaprizov, Neely, Oates, Gartner, Alfredsson, Kovalchuk, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Doughty, Fleury, Keith, Stamkos, Bergeron

Local Star ..... Well-known to fans of a particular team who would hate to lose him

Players such as Larkin, Weber, F. Forsberg, W. Clarke, Nieuwendyk, Andreychuk, Bellows, Muller, C. Lemieux, Kuznetsov, K. Stevens, Graves, Nylander

Quality Player ..... Known to fans of a particular team who wouldn't want to lose him, but wouldn't shed too many tears if they did

Players such as: JT Miller, Horvat, Hertl, Rakell, Pfaneuf, Turris, Neal, Ellis, Ribeiro, Ehlers, M. Johansson

Average player ... May have some local fans; they come and go over the years

Players such as Barabanov, Eller, Myers, Motte, Ceci, Nieto

Body ..... Fills out the roster, hardly anybody notices his presence or absence or really even cares

The rest

 

[Felidae]

Perspnally, I usually wait for a player to perform at an elite level for more than one season before labeling someone a superstar.

However, there's no denying Tage Thompson is one of the most exciting players in the league.. So many highlight reel plays last season.

 

[UED]

One season where he wasn’t even top 10 in scoring and no playoffs appearance make him a superstar? I guess my criteria are too high.

I don't know why people are coming up with weird tier lists of made up tiers of players. Personally I think your guess is right.

It's not that complicated; a superstar is just a guy who is good enough to be the best player on a stanley cup winning team, although I don't think you need a superstar to win, either. Most but not all winning teams have two of them, which is why they win and not some other team. A star is a guy who is not, but is probably good enough to be #2 or #3 like a Stone, Hintz, Backstrom etc. Then the players aren't relevant enough to warrant fancy words anymore just top 6, middle 6, bottom 6, AHLer. Although I think the word star can also be used to describe anyone in the NHL, if you're talking about something they've done unrelated to hockey but a hockey forum isn't really the place to use that definition.

Tage may be one of the worst superstars but he beat Crosby, Matthews, Ovechkin and Panarin at what they do on a worse team and the same conference and didn't get the pleasure of stat padding vs Buffalo and I think all 4 would be considered superstars. Everyone above him is a pretty undisputed superstar other than Point and Nugent-Hopkins who have inflated stats due to the players they play with.

 

[Breakers]

I think I agree that there is like 10-12 superstars in the league
Multiple teams have multiple superstars

Not sure he qualifies

 

[VivaLasVegas]

Players such as Iginla, Naslund, Bertuzzi, Pettersson, Hughes, St Louis, Hossa, Sundin, Kaprizov, Neely, Oates, Gartner, Alfredsson, Kovalchuk, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Doughty, Fleury, Keith, Stamkos, Bergeron


Players such as Larkin, Weber, F. Forsberg, W. Clarke, Nieuwendyk, Andreychuk, Bellows, Muller, C. Lemieux, Kuznetsov, K. Stevens, Graves, Nylander


Players such as: JT Miller, Horvat, Hertl, Rakell, Pfaneuf, Turris, Neal, Ellis, Ribeiro, Ehlers, M. Johansson


Players such as Barabanov, Eller, Myers, Motte, Ceci, Nieto


The rest

Well done, sir!

 

[eojsmada]

I'll just stick with promising young star, for Thompson, until he proves he can consistently produce, as well as help his team win more meaningful games.

 

[Panthaz89]

I wouldn't call it falling off a cliff. He was playing injured towards the back 3rd of the season and was just under ppg. In the Sabres final 30 games Tage played in 26 of those games and scored 25 points.

He had a large wrap on his wrist and had some back problems.

He was also playing wing next to Cozens and Greenway while Mitts took the top center spot.

 

[Ben White]

I think I agree that there is like 10-12 superstars in the league
Multiple teams have multiple superstars

Not sure he qualifies

I’d say there’s like 6 true superstars right now and a lot more stars.

 

[VivaLasVegas]

I don't know why people are coming up with weird tier lists of made up tiers of players. Personally I think your guess is right.

It's not that complicated; a superstar is just a guy who is good enough to be the best player on a stanley cup winning team, although I don't think you need a superstar to win, either. Most but not all winning teams have two of them, which is why they win and not some other team. A star is a guy who is not, but is probably good enough to be #2 or #3 like a Stone, Hintz, Backstrom etc. Then the players aren't relevant enough to warrant fancy words anymore just top 6, middle 6, bottom 6, AHLer. Although I think the word star can also be used to describe anyone in the NHL, if you're talking about something they've done unrelated to hockey but a hockey forum isn't really the place to use that definition.

Tage may be one of the worst superstars but he beat Crosby, Matthews, Ovechkin and Panarin at what they do on a worse team and the same conference and didn't get the pleasure of stat padding vs Buffalo and I think all 4 would be considered superstars. Everyone above him is a pretty undisputed superstar other than Point and Nugent-Hopkins who have inflated stats due to the players they play with.

I see it very differently. A star is somebody who is known league-wide, while a superstar is somebody that is also known to sports fans generally.

LeBron James is a star. Even if you don't follow the NBA, you know who LeBron James is. Contrast with Kawhi Leonard who is well-known by NBA fans, but non-NBA fans might not know who he is.

Patrick Mahomes is a superstar. TJ Watt is a star.

Tiger Woods is a superstar. Scottie Scheffler is a star.

One doesn't have to win it all to be a superstar, see, e.g., Ted Williams, Charles Barkley, Dan Marino, etc.

IF the NHL has a current superstar,* it would obviously be Connor McDavid. Leon Draisatl would be a star.

*At least in the US, I seriously doubt that anything like a majority of non-hockey sports fans have any idea who McDavid is, e.g., if one snap-polled the audience at any NFL, NBA or MLB game asking which sport McDavid plays, I doubt that a majority would correctly answer "hockey". This isn't any dig on McDavid, but more of a reflection that he's typically not a "Big Ad" guy like any of James, Mahomes or Woods due to hockey's relatively small stature within U.S. sports, particularly when it comes to marketing. Or maybe put it this way, when a guy hits $50 million in personal advertising endorsements in one year, he's a superstar in the US. However, I presume that McDavid would still fit the bill as a superstar in Canada, i.e., he's a household name there without regard to how much advertising bucks he brings in, so I'm inclined to consider him the NHL's only current true superstar. And at least McDavid does do some national ads with Gretzky, who everybody does know across sports.

With the possible exception of Crosby, I seriously doubt that US non-hockey sports fans would have any clue about other players, including US-born players such as Matthews or Eichel, so they are just stars. That's just because the US is sports-saturated and hockey comes in 6th after the NFL, NCAA football, NBA, NBA men's basketball, and the MLB. That's a long way down the totem poll. "Las Vegas Golden Knights win Stanley Cup, coverage on page 6."

FWIW, I'm not sure MLB has a true superstar right now either, the last one that I can think of would be Barry Bonds, but will leave that to others to correct me.

 

[Three On Zero]

I see it very differently. A star is somebody who is known league-wide, while a superstar is somebody that is also known to sports fans generally.

LeBron James is a star. Even if you don't follow the NBA, you know who LeBron James is. Contrast with Kawhi Leonard who is well-known by NBA fans, but non-NBA fans might not know who he is.

Patrick Mahomes is a superstar. TJ Watt is a star.

Tiger Woods is a superstar. Scottie Scheffler is a star.

One doesn't have to win it all to be a superstar, see, e.g., Ted Williams, Charles Barkley, Dan Marino, etc.

IF the NHL has a current superstar,* it would obviously be Connor McDavid. Leon Draisatl would be a star.

*At least in the US, I seriously doubt that anything like a majority of non-hockey sports fans have any idea who McDavid is, e.g., if one snap-polled the audience at any NFL, NBA or MLB game asking which sport McDavid plays, I doubt that a majority would correctly answer "hockey". This isn't any dig on McDavid, but more of a reflection that he's typically not a "Big Ad" guy like any of James, Mahomes or Woods due to hockey's relatively small stature within U.S. sports, particularly when it comes to marketing. Or maybe put it this way, when a guy hits $50 million in personal advertising endorsements in one year, he's a superstar in the US. However, I presume that McDavid would still fit the bill as a superstar in Canada, i.e., he's a household name there without regard to how much advertising bucks he brings in, so I'm inclined to consider him the NHL's only current true superstar. And at least McDavid does do some national ads with Gretzky, who everybody does know across sports.

With the possible exception of Crosby, I seriously doubt that US non-hockey sports fans would have any clue about other players, including US-born players such as Matthews or Eichel, so they are just stars. That's just because the US is sports-saturated and hockey comes in 6th after the NFL, NCAA football, NBA, NBA men's basketball, and the MLB. That's a long way down the totem poll. "Las Vegas Golden Knights win Stanley Cup, coverage on page 6."

FWIW, I'm not sure MLB has a true superstar right now either, the last one that I can think of would be Barry Bonds, but will leave that to others to correct me.

Ohtani????

 

[Dirty Dog]

There are definitely more players that are better than him THAN there are players more exciting than him. He’s a finesse giant that players center and likes to dangle with a laser shot. He’s a unicorn in the league.

One of the most fun players to watch.

 

[wetcoast]

One season where he wasn’t even top 10 in scoring and no playoffs appearance make him a superstar? I guess my criteria are too high.

This is my first thought as well more a star than a superstar and sure playoffs really help to elevate or deflate perceptions of differences that some might put on comparing them on the star/superstar rating system.

As a side not the generality of the OP gets a bit irritating and a much more informative question would be is TT the top 5, 10, 15 whatever in the league right now.

Someone with the exact same opinion as me about TT could have them in their personal superstar rankings because it might be larger and also possibly favor players like TT, big goal scoring centers and minimize his shortcoming even a bit.

 

[VivaLasVegas]

Ohtani????

Baseball player?

 

[Three On Zero]

Baseball player?

Yes

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

Are the Sabres coming to burn down our villages again?

 

[sabremike]

Are the Sabres coming to burn down our villages again?

 

[Three On Zero]

Are the Sabres coming to burn down our villages again?

Coming to burn down our villages but will only leave it slightly unorganized again

 

[Pavels Dog]

I’d say there’s like 6 true superstars right now and a lot more stars.

This is kind of how I feel too. Superstar is a big label. Not many of those exist. In another thread a guy was calling Eichel/Stone/Pietrangelo superstars. To me.. absolutely not.

 

[centipede2233]

mcdavid
mackinnon
draisaitl
matthews
tkachuk
pastrnak
crosby
hughes
rantanen
kucherov
robertson
kaprizov
marner
pettersson
point
barkov
eichel

if Tage qualifies this is too many superstars for my liking tbh. That's just forwards.

Having said that the gap isn't terribly big among a lot of the top ~25 forwards but I feel like there needs to be more of a cutoff or we'd have like 30 superstars counting defensemen and goalies.

I consider a star player, not a superstar player.

 

[Mike Liut]

The Blues draft really well.

 

[PaulD]

I think I agree that there is like 10-12 superstars in the league
Multiple teams have multiple superstars

Not sure he qualifies

Agreed. Atleast not yet.

 

[DapperCam]

Who cares how efficient at accumulating points he is. You guys are missing the point here. His highlight reel plays/60 is off the charts.

Every goal is a 90+ mph bomb, or sick dangle. No boring goals allowed in Tage-land.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Who cares how efficient at accumulating points he is. You guys are missing the point here. His highlight reel plays/60 is off the charts.

Every goal is a 90+ mph bomb, or sick dangle. No boring goals allowed in Tage-land.

Haha I appreciate the hyperbolic humor, but he did score at least 10-15 sick wristers last year, not an awful total just alone.

And I find it funny the folks complaining about a hockey thread on a hockey board in summer. Like, goddamn, what you wanna do? Walk past the thread if it don’t appeal. And if you don’t think he’s a superstar- that’s cool, that’s a take, the dismissal of a whole topic thing is what’s lame. “Yo, I showed up to say what you’re talking about is stupid.” Lame.

 

[LetsGoBLUES91]

Brook agrees.


I will take Tage before few of them.

I'll bite. Which guys on that list would you take Tage ahead of?

 

[TageGod]

I admittedly didn’t see much of him this past year. Has his skating improved, or is he a rare exception who is able to succeed despite it?

At least you admit to not watching him. Tage is actually a very good skater. The acceleration leaves a bit to be desired at that size....no time to get up to speed on the wing, too much start and stopping. Center allows him to carry his speed more.

If Tage repeats his performance prior to all star break, he is a 110 point player.