Joel Armia - Ässät, SM-liiga

[R S]

I loved this kid in his draft year, wanting the Avs to get him. Was terribly disappointed in him at last year's WJ's but if he can play with the energy and effort level that he did yesterday against Canada, this kid could be a force. Very skilled, good size...just needs to always keep his feet and head in the game.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Not sure if that's how he plays all the time, but he looked really good yesterday against Canada. Nice display of puckhandling ability, and was difficult to knock off the puck. Very assertive.

 

[InjuredChoker]

Not sure if that's how he plays all the time, but he looked really good yesterday against Canada. Nice display of puckhandling ability, and was difficult to knock off the puck. Very assertive.

He doesn't, sadly.

Armia can be very frustrating player to watch when he's not scoring and going through he's slumps. Which have been discussed in this thread to some extent, I think.

We'll see if he can keep this up. God I hope so, he's a nice kid.

 

[pigpen65]

Not sure if that's how he plays all the time, but he looked really good yesterday against Canada. Nice display of puckhandling ability, and was difficult to knock off the puck. Very assertive.

That's the thing that stood out the most. He played a pretty good game and showed off some nice stick handling and passing, but good stick handling and passing can vary from game to game based on on/off nights. The strength he showed on the puck was definitely something new this year that wasn't there last year. Hopefully this is the payoff from having him develop in a men's league that was hoped for. Hopefully he's gotten used to playing with bigger stronger guys than him, and now that's he's playing against kids again he's just flat out stronger than the competition.

 

[Juzmo]

I loved this kid in his draft year, wanting the Avs to get him. Was terribly disappointed in him at last year's WJ's but if he can play with the energy and effort level that he did yesterday against Canada, this kid could be a force. Very skilled, good size...just needs to always keep his feet and head in the game.

I don't really understand how huge were your expectations for him since he did score five goals (+1 in the SO) and get two assists. Not to mention most of those points were gathered against the better teams in clutch situations, so he did exactly what was expected from him. Like it has been said, Armia isn't your typical Finnish forward working hard 24/7, but when it matters most he often comes through. Not to say I won't expect him to be even better in every way this year since I'd imagine that there won't be any excuses with the icetime and such this time.

 

[K2MyEverest]

I loved his game against Canada yesterdey, they were saying that he improved a lot from last year. We'll see but he really stood out for me. If he can continue like that, Buffalo really have some quality prospects on their way!

 

[start winnin]

I loved his game against Canada yesterdey, they were saying that he improved a lot from last year. We'll see but he really stood out for me. If he can continue like that, Buffalo really have some quality prospects on their way!

When he's on, he's incredible. His game against Canada was amazing.

 

[Uncle Scrooge]

I watched the Canada game live and Armia was definitely the crowd favorite after that game. Nifty stickhandling, passes and like people here have said he was hard to knock off the puck. Canadians got really frustrated with him at times.

Now its obvious that he does have his slumps but its all about confidence and groove. When he succeeds with his dangles etc. its like a confidence snowball that keeps on going but then when things starts to go wrong its not easy to get back to that rhythm. But i believe he can play like this all the time. It hasnt been an easy year for him with the concussion issues and stuff but he looked just like this when the season started in Finland.

 

[Loffer]

Armia is an incredible player! He has always looked good but now he seems to have lifted his game to another level. He surely is one of the best prospects out there, I would say the best offensive prospect in the world right now. In fact he is the best Finnish player already, if not yet, in couple of years. He is flashy, fast, incredibly skillful, big and has a good vision. A complete package. What a steal by Sabres in the 2011 draft. Really fun player to watch.

Barkov is good for his age, smart, responsible and effective. But rather boring player to watch, to be frank. He hasn't the speed or flash of Armia. Or never will have.

Anyways, I would rank Finnish top forward prospects (drafted and undrafted) as follows now:

1) Armia
----------
2) Barkov
-----------
3a) Mi. Granlund
3b) Teravainen

 

[Vasilevskiy]

Armia is an incredible player! He has always looked good but now he seems to have lifted his game to another level. He surely is one of the best prospects out there, I would say the best offensive prospect in the world right now. In fact he is the best Finnish player already, if not yet, in couple of years. He is flashy, fast, incredibly skillful, big and has a good vision. A complete package. What a steal by Sabres in the 2011 draft. Really fun player to watch.

Barkov is good for his age, smart, responsible and effective. But rather boring player to watch, to be frank. He hasn't the speed or flash of Armia. Or never will have.

Anyways, I would rank Finnish top forward prospects (drafted and undrafted) as follows now:

1) Armia
----------
2) Barkov
-----------
3a) Mi. Granlund
3b) Teravainen

just no, Richard Panik is better, Granlund is better too (not Markus), and I could continue with Yakupov, Tarasenko, Kuznetsov, Huberdeau, Strome and many other prospects

 

[Loffer]

just no, Richard Panik is better, Granlund is better too (not Markus), and I could continue with Yakupov, Tarasenko, Kuznetsov, Huberdeau, Strome and many other prospects

Kuznetsov just might be but not the rest. Strome!??

 

[heksagon]

Armia is an incredible player! He has always looked good but now he seems to have lifted his game to another level. He surely is one of the best prospects out there, I would say the best offensive prospect in the world right now. In fact he is the best Finnish player already, if not yet, in couple of years. He is flashy, fast, incredibly skillful, big and has a good vision. A complete package. What a steal by Sabres in the 2011 draft. Really fun player to watch.

Barkov is good for his age, smart, responsible and effective. But rather boring player to watch, to be frank. He hasn't the speed or flash of Armia. Or never will have.

Anyways, I would rank Finnish top forward prospects (drafted and undrafted) as follows now:

1) Armia
----------
2) Barkov
-----------
3a) Mi. Granlund
3b) Teravainen

Uhh... Armia has played well in two pre-tournament games and now he suddenly is the best Finnish player?

We all know how good Armia is when he's on, but the problem is that he hasn't yet shown that he can do it constantly. I like the kid so I hope that he will get consistent, but right now he is an on-off player.

 

[YARR123]

Armia was dominant in the Canada game, but today I wasn't as impressed. Sure he was good today as well but it looked like he was getting a bit too comfortable and he lost focus. He was going for too many fancy dekes and trying to make the opposition look stupid. That usually doesn't result in the best hockey play for each situation.

As long as he keeps his focus I'm not worried, he should be one of the best forwards in the tournament. I hope Rindell does something to keep his feet on the ground.

 

[1972]

just no, Richard Panik is better, Granlund is better too (not Markus), and I could continue with Yakupov, Tarasenko, Kuznetsov, Huberdeau, Strome and many other prospects

There are quite a few better offensive prospects then Armia but Panik is not one of them.

 

[Loffer]

Just stating the obvious. If you watch him play you must admit that he has the highest upside of all Finnish prospects.

 

[Gaps]

Just stating the obvious. If you watch him play you must admit that he has the highest upside of all Finnish prospects.

If your definition of upside= pure goal-scoring potential then yes, I'd have to agree. But when we start thinking about the other areas of play, at least MiG and Barkov have higher upsides. Armia has no idea how to defend and he's not as smart as those two, although he's smarter than a lot of people give him credit for. He can make smart plays, too but unfortunately too often he chooses not to and does something really stupid or selfish instead, which usually ends with either the opposing team getting a scoring chance or just Armia failing to put the puck in. Sometimes both.

Like someone already said in this thread, Armia's biggest problem is that he's gotten off way too easy. His coach hasn't demanded enough from him. If the Sabres organization can figure out a way to get him to work harder and demand things from him, he could live up to his potential, and I sure hope he does.

 

[start winnin]

If your definition of upside= pure goal-scoring potential then yes, I'd have to agree. But when we start thinking about the other areas of play, at least MiG and Barkov have higher upsides. Armia has no idea how to defend and he's not as smart as those two, although he's smarter than a lot of people give him credit for. He can make smart plays, too but unfortunately too often he chooses not to and does something really stupid or selfish instead, which usually ends with either the opposing team getting a scoring chance or just Armia failing to put the puck in. Sometimes both.

Like someone already said in this thread, Armia's biggest problem is that he's gotten off way too easy. His coach hasn't demanded enough from him. If the Sabres organization can figure out a way to get him to work harder and demand things from him, he could live up to his potential, and I sure hope he does.

If this is his biggest problem and he thrives with a coach that demands more from him he'll get all he can handle from Lindy Ruff. LOL

 

[Gaps]

If this is his biggest problem and he thrives with a coach that demands more from him he'll get all he can handle from Lindy Ruff. LOL

From what I've seen, the extent of the coddling Armia's received is incredible. If he plays several games lazily and selfishly, does he get scratched or thrown into the 3rd line? Not usually. I think he did play one game in Ässät's 2nd or 3rd line this season, though but was then moved back to the 1st line. My fellow Finns are free to correct me if I'm wrong about this.

Armia plays very well when he wants to, but it seems that most of the time he doesn't think he has a good reason to give his all because being lazy seems to have no consequences.

I went to see one of Ässät's games and I was a little surprised by what I saw... Armia missed a very good scoring chance, but instead of behaving like an adult about it, he:

1) Nearly smacked his coach in the face with his stick when returning to the bench because he was too angry to control his stick. The coach reacted by first dodging and then by patting Armia's shoulder in a "There, there, Joppe, don't worry. You'll do better next time"-way instead of telling him to pay attention to his stick

2) Refused to celebrate a goal scored by a team mate a few minutes later. He just sat on the bench, brooding and nobody told him to get off his lazy behind and be a good team mate.

I don't think the coach has much authority over Armia.

 

[Vasilevskiy]

There are quite a few better offensive prospects then Armia but Panik is not one of them.

I understand your opinion but Panik is criminally underrated in this boards, same for players like Conacher or Killorn (syracuse crunch team in general)

We will see next year when Panik is in the NHL playing if he's as good as I'm expecting

 

[Juzmo]

From what I've seen, the extent of the coddling Armia's received is incredible. If he plays several games lazily and selfishly, does he get scratched or thrown into the 3rd line? Not usually. I think he did play one game in Ässät's 2nd or 3rd line this season, though but was then moved back to the 1st line. My fellow Finns are free to correct me if I'm wrong about this.

Armia has played this season mostly on the second line, a few games on the third line and once can remember him starting on the first line with Stephan Dixon. Has been benched for the final period of a game once, possibly twice.

At least sm-liiga.fi repeatedly lists Armia's line as first and Dixon's as second, while it's probably evident that it's other way around in reality.

Really? I've usually seen him on the 1st line in SM-liiga's online lineups, although you could argue that Dixon's line (which shows up as the 2nd line most of the time) is actually Ässät's 1st line.

Edit. Yeah, the order of how they are marked on the site doesn't mean all that much.

 

[Haite]

Armia has played this season mostly on the second line, a few games on the third line and once can remember him starting on the first line with Stephan Dixon. Has been benched for the final period of a game once, possibly twice.

At least sm-liiga.fi repeatedly lists Armia's line as first and Dixon's as second, while it's probably evident that it's other way around in reality.

 

[Gaps]

Armia has played this season mostly on the second line, a few games on the third line and once can remember him starting on the first line with Stephan Dixon. Has been benched for the final period of a game once, possibly twice.

Really? I've usually seen him on the 1st line in SM-liiga's online lineups, although you could argue that Dixon's line (which shows up as the 2nd line most of the time) is actually Ässät's 1st line.

 

[1972]

I understand your opinion but Panik is criminally underrated in this boards, same for players like Conacher or Killorn (syracuse crunch team in general)

We will see next year when Panik is in the NHL playing if he's as good as I'm expecting

I know how good Conacher and Panik are, I actually am only a few minutes from where he grew up and just read an article about him today, I have heard about Killorn but havent payed attention to him because I dont have the access to many AHL game or the desire to watch too many AHL games.