Can Joel Armia sustain this goal scoring for the Montreal Canadiens?
Joel Armia has been on a tear for the Montreal Canadiens, and perhaps this is the season he proves to everyone why he was a first-round pick.
Before we begin, the Montreal Canadiens got Joel Armia for free. As much as the Max Pacioretty is praised where the team received Tomas Tatar, Nick Suzuki, and a second-round pick that became Mattias Norlinder and Jacob Leguerrier (a trade tree for a later day), it’s incredible how well that deal with Winnipeg played out.
To jog your memory, the Winnipeg Jets were in a cap crunch and needed to shed some salary in the form of Steve Mason to have a chance at resigning Paul Stasny. The goaltender wasn’t part of the team’s future and was on the final year of a contract that carried a $4.1 million cap hit. Marc Bergevin agreed to take Mason on for the purpose of buying out the year sending ‘on the outside looking in’ prospect Simon Bourque the other way. But for helping out, the Habs also received then restricted free agent Armia and a pair of draft picks.
The 2019 pick was used to select defenceman Kieran Ruscheinski while the fourth-round pick in 2020 will be used this upcoming summer.
Imagine that. All of these pieces just to buy out the final year of a deal and carry a $1,366,667 penalty for two years (which ends after this season). What makes this better is how well Joel Armia has been performing for the Montreal Canadiens.
The 26-year-old ran into some injury trouble along the way but is leading the team in goals with six in nine games. Armia has nearly produced half the goals he scored last year (13) with no apparent signs of slowing down.
That, of course, is when you watch him play. Some of the numbers, unfortunately, point at this recent tear being unsustainable. But is that the case?
What stood out about Armia when the Montreal Canadiens first received him was his shot generation in the slot. He is a big body and a good skater as well, and when he combined those two elements, he was a force at 5v5. The issue with that is it would come and go.
It looks as if Armia has put everything together for the long run. He’s using his size to outmuscle the opposition and win puck battles as well as his speed to get himself in areas to produce. An example of the first shouldn’t be too hard to come by, given how good he looked on his tally against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Armia undressed Jake Muzzin and charged down the ice using quick hands to beat Michael Hutchinson for his sixth.
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Another example was in the team’s loss to the San Jose Sharks. Armia, along with Max Domi, got himself in an area by the left faceoff circle to deflect the shot and score. It’s not only 5v5 where Armia is generating as he’s scored shorthanded as well. Again, his first goal of the season was an excellent feed from Nate Thompson, but Armia got himself to the front of the net and quickly beat Carter Hutton.
In fact, Armia’s stick work has been one of the noticeable differences. There’s a lot more speed that comes with it, and that’s not only with his handling of the puck but with his release. All these things are coming together to allow Armia to have the season he’s putting on display for the Montreal Canadiens.
Looking at his goal and shot locations, there shouldn’t be a surprise. The majority of his shots are within the high-danger triangle formed between the net and two faceoff dots while his goals are in the slot with the exception of one on the backdoor (via IcyData).
It also helps that Armia has seen a slight increase in his shooting rate at 5v5 (9.53 vs. 9.44) as well as more power playtime. Armia saw a total of approximately 99 minutes on the man advantage last season whereas he’s almost at 25 minutes played with 71 more games to go.
There’s always a “but” though.
In this case, the “but” falls within two areas. The first being his shooting percentage, and the second being his PDO.
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Ignoring this season, Armia has had a career shooting percentage of about 8.9% (39 goals on 435 shots). His six goals on 26 shots have his shooting percentage at a ridiculously high 23.1%, raising his career average to 10% on the dot.
Some players naturally have high shooting percentages. Alexander Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos, and T.J. Oshie are a few examples. Even Paul Byron was used to having a relatively high shooting percentage. The difference was there was a larger sample of it, reducing the possibility of it being a lucky stretch.
Armia going from 9.7% to 23.1% is the definition of a jump.
PDO is another stat that comes up a lot when analysts try to determine whether a player or team’s production is sustainable. All players and teams will eventually see their PDO hover around 100 (or 1.00 depending on what site you’re looking at). There’s room for slight variations, but everything will eventually reach that median value.
A team or player with a PDO greatly below 100 suggests they are getting a lot of bad luck, whereas a PDO greatly above suggests that they have a bunch of four-leaf clovers in their locker. Armia’s PDO at 5v5 is 108.3, which hints at the forward getting a lot of bounces that are going his way.
This doesn’t mitigate what he’s produced, but it should make fans raise an eyebrow a bit. Armia continuing to score at this pace would see him net another 47 goals. That would be wild and not something I think he is capable of; however, that doesn’t mean Armia can’t hit the 20-goal mark for the first time in his career.
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He’s as confident as ever, and he’s using the tools that made him a first-round pick in the first place. As long as Armia continues to do that, he will be a threat every time Claude Julien gives him the tap.
Advanced stats from Natural Stat Trick