Thomson scored a goal and recorded 4 shots in Kelowna Rockets’ 3-4 defeat against the Victoria Royals. Thomson has had a pretty strong start to his season, as he has scored 3 goals in only 7 games. He is a mobile skater and showcased really nice top speed in a couple of situations, where he was able to easily carry the puck through the neutral zone. Thomson was actively looking for shooting opportunities from the point and showcased his accurate and powerful one-timer on the goal he scored. He was also helping the offense by joining the rush whenever he had the opportunity to do so.

I have some questions about Thomson’s defensive game and hockey sense, as he made a couple of positional errors and lost some 1-on-1 battles. Also, he caused a couple of turnovers by failing simple breakout passes. However, I like that he can punish opposing forwards physically.

Thomson scored his first career WHL goal in his third game with the Kelowna Rockets. He was playing big minutes with a fellow 2019 prospect Kaedan Korczak at 5 on 5 and was used regularly on the power play. Thomson is a mobile two-way defenceman, who has good top speed and ability to move the puck smoothly. He made a couple of great outlet passes and was overall very efficient at transitions.

I thought Thomson had a quite powerful slap shot from the point, which he showcased on the power play. He caused a couple of turnovers, but overall I thought he looked decent in his own end. Thomson is not the biggest defenceman, but is not afraid of the physical battles. Overall I like what Thomson brings to the table and as he gets more comfortable with the team and the league, he should put up some nice offensive numbers as well.

Thomson got two goals and assist and played for almost 25 minutes in a game Ilves won 5-0. Both defender’s goals were slapshots which could have had more punch but were accurate enough to go past the goalie. These weren’t the only times when he was able to shoot the puck through the traffic either.

Thomson is active and mobile defenceman who showed good agility and top speed. In this game Ilves was dominant and Thomson wasn’t tested much defensively but he was able to show his offensive skills. Even though his dekes weren’t always effective, he carried the puck with a lot of confidence and that aspect combined with above average skating and good passing abilities created a lot of offense for his team. However I thought that Thomson was thinking offense a bit too much in this game and especially in the beginning of the game he left his man unguarded too often. This caused some dangerous counter attacks when player from TUTO Hockey got the puck at his side when Thomson was in the incorrect position.

He also seemed to get easily frustrated despite the five-goal lead and while I like that he has grit in his game, showing grit outside the play when the game was already resolved seemed unnecessary. Overall Thomson seems to have a lot of good tools and even though he needs to adjust his play when he enters pro game, he could become pretty good defenceman in the future if he learns to use his strengths properly.

Thomson looked good in a game where the rest of his team really didn’t. Ilves lost to Jokerit 1-6 but Thomson managed a +1 plus-minus reading.

He played a simple game, kept good gap control and had an active stick. He showed good explosiveness as well as good edge work when skating.

Offensively he gave the easy first pass and didn’t try to play too complicated game in any situation.