On Friday night, we saw the kind of performance from Joel Armia that reminds you why he was drafted 16th overall by the Buffalo Sabres in 2011. Traded to the Winnipeg Jets as a piece in the Evander Kane deal, Armia probably fell short of the acquiring team’s expectations in the end. They ended up making him the casualty of a cap-motivated trade in 2018; you don’t give away a first-rounder unless you feel like you’ve already squeezed all of his potential. Still, it is hard to fault the organization for making a bet on him.
There is such a ridiculous amount of skill in Armia’s game.