MONTREAL – Joel Armia could have easily decided to mail it in, collect his NHL salary and accept that this was the beginning of the end.
Sending an eight-year NHL veteran to the AHL is never an easy decision, and the Montreal Canadiens did not take it lightly when they sent Armia to the Laval Rocket to start the season, but it was a clear sign he was not part of their future plans and that his roster spot was more valuable to them than he was as a player.
For someone who has long struggled with being overly critical of his own game, of letting the slightest bit of adversity in a game distract him, leading to more adversity, Armia could have been crushed by this type of career development.
But he went to Laval and got rave reviews for his positive attitude, he scored four goals in four games, was called back up to Montreal and scratched for four games before making his season debut Oct. 28. He scored that night against the Winnipeg Jets, the team that traded him to Montreal in 2018 as a sweetener for taking on the contract of goalie Steve Mason and buying it out, Armia’s first brush with feeling expendable.
Armia lasted five more games in Montreal before being sent back down, and back in Laval a second time, his attitude remained extraordinarily positive.
“I didn’t see any other way,” Armia said Thursday night after scoring two goals in a 7-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. “It’s the only way I saw it, be positive and work myself back.”
Armia has done that, which is why he is the nominee of the Montreal chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association for the Masterton Trophy, an award that honours the player who “best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to the game.”
It is difficult to see what Armia has done this season any other way.
In Armia’s first game after his second call-up from Laval, he scored again, the winner in Columbus on Nov. 29. He was never sent down again, and now has 16 goals this season, matching his career-high set in the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season.
“I think he just took everything into his own hands and he just built himself back up,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “Someone who cares a lot about the game, who loves the game, usually will do that.”
