MONTREAL — A sequence from the third period of Montreal’s slump-busting 6-2 win over the Washington Capitals: Joel Armia stops Tom Wilson in his tracks, strips him of the puck and starts the rush out of his own end. He joins it up ice, circles the opposing net, catches a pass and throws a brilliant one over to Mike Matheson for a golden scoring chance taken away by Capitals goaltender Darcy Kuemper. As the Capitals seize control of the puck to exit their own zone and release the pressure, Armia hunts it down, takes it back, retreats into his own end and stickhandles his way out of trouble, holding possession for several seconds to allow the Canadiens to execute a line change and start another rush up the ice.
This was 20 minutes after the six-foot-four, 213-pound winger bookended a Brendan Gallagher marker with two goals he ripped home off set faceoff plays.
They were impressive, and part of a dominant performance from Armia, who completed a hat trick with an empty-net goal.
He was the main reason the Canadiens earned their first win in over a week. He used his size to his advantage, put his incredible puck protection skills to work, made his shot a threat all nine times he uncorked it, helped captain Nick Suzuki hit a new career high in points (62), and once again left the door wide open to the question people have been asking about him since early in his career with the Buffalo Sabres.
Why can’t this incredibly talented player unlock his skills more often?
We put that to Armia, who was drafted 16th overall in 2011, and he came up with a pretty good answer.
Canadiens’ Armia shows off wicked shot to collect second career hat trick
“Too many times I’m my own worst enemy, being too hard on myself,” he said. “That’s one thing I need to learn is how to play more relaxed. I think that’s one big thing.”
Consider it enormous that the Pori, Finland native is actively working on it, meeting with Canadiens mental performance coach J.F. Menard regularly this season and trying to address this career-long malaise he’s suffered.
Taking the cynical view that Armia can’t succeed in that process and turn himself into a player who’s at least worth the $3.4-million cap hit he’s commanding through the end of this season — and for two more after it — would be easy.
He’s been a full-timer in the NHL for eight seasons and, over that time, all he’s ever done is make people wonder if he’ll ever realize his enormous potential. It would be the path of least resistance to suggest it isn’t going to happen for him after he turns 30 in May.
But so long as he believes he can do it, there’s hope he actually can.
“I can be a good player,” Armia said. “I feel like I have a lot of skill, a good shot, and I read the game well.”
Canadiens’ Drouin sends gorgeous no-look backhand to set up Gallagher
He’d be wise to remind himself of that every time he gets bogged down in a lost battle or missed scoring chance.
And if Armia wants some help believing it can still happen for him this late in the game, he needn’t look further than across the Canadiens dressing room, to Mike Matheson, who registered three assists on Thursday to set a career-high in points (33) in just his 45th game of the season.
He, too, is a former first-round pick who struggled with his first team. He spent a lot of time with the Florida Panthers being hard on himself before a couple of progressive seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins and this dominant one with the Canadiens.
Matheson also sees in Armia what the Canadiens see in him.
“We talk about it,” he said, “I think he’s definitely hard on himself for sure, but he’s a special player. He has all the tools. He has the best shot on the team, he works so hard, cares so much, so it’s great to see him get that hat trick. I was happy for him.”
It was good to see Armia happy for himself after this game.
There have been many obstacles in the way for him on other nights — an injury suffered in training camp that left him behind the 8-ball to start the season, a 10-game absence with another one from the end of October through mid-November, a shot to the ribs from New York Rangers defenceman Jacob Trouba that left him hurt from Jan. 17-Feb. 12, and then an illness, which turned into a respiratory infection and sidelined him for 19 games — making his output of four goals and seven assists through 39 games before this one a little more understandable.
But there were plenty of those 39 games that just made you wonder where the Armia we saw on Thursday was hiding. Games that made you wonder if the player we saw dominate during games on the 2021 run to the Stanley Cup Final would ever resurface.
Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis gave him an opportunity to play with Suzuki and sparkplug Rafael Harvey-Pinard against Washington, and there he was.
St. Louis has helped so many players find their best selves since taking over the bench in February of 2022 and, now that he knows Armia that much better, feels equipped to help.
“(I have to) speak to him. Speak to him a lot,” St. Louis said. “No matter what athlete in no matter what sport, it’s not just about ability; there’s a mental side and confidence. There are lesser players who have lots of confidence, and there are really good players who have fragile confidence. I try to help those players, and you have to surround them well.”
And Armia has to take advantage of that support and do what’s best for himself.
“It’s just as simple as it is,” he said. “You can’t have a perfect game every time, and that’s what I sometimes look for. To understand everybody makes mistakes, you don’t have to drag that.”
Games like the one Armia played on Thursday should help.
“Of course. Every time you get success, it puts you more in relaxed mode,” he said. “You get that positive. It’s not negative things to think about. It gives you confidence.”
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
