Colby Armstrong - RW - 6'2" 195 lbs 2011-12 Stats: 29GP - 1G - 2A - -8 - 9 PIM
The Cost
Armstrong signed a one year deal worth $1 million. That is a steal for a third liner who adds grit and can chip in offensively providing he can stay healthy.
Armstrong missed 53 games due to injuries last season including a sprained ankle, an injured foot and a broken nose. It's no doubt that Armstrong's injury riddled year helped lower his previous, $3 million salary.
Performance
With numbers that don't do much to impress, it is his style of play that brought Armstrong to Montreal. Much like the recently signed Ryan White, Travis Moen and Brandon Prust, Armstrong will help make the Canadiens much tougher to play against.
Armstrong plays a similar type of game as former Habs' Darcy Tucker and Maxim Lapierre where he gets under the skin of opposing players and doesn't gain much love from fans outside of the city in which he plays.
The Fit
A third line of Armstrong, Lars Eller and Travis Moen would be ideal. While Eller has yet to sign with the Canadiens it is likely that the free agent frenzy is what's holding it back and that the young Danish centerman will come to terms with the Habs when things die down.
Armstrong is a strong two way player who along with Eller and Moen could play aginst teams top lines while at the same time chipping in with some occasional offense.
53 missed games last year makes it difficult to guage much but in 2010-11 Armstrong averaged 1:51 minutes of shorthanded play per game.
With Armstrong and Brandon Prust joining the Habs and Petteri Nokelainen returning, one of the most advantageous aspects of the new additions could be the play of Tomas Plekanec.
With so many capable penalty killers, this could be the year that Plekanec is given a bit of a break on the PK and more time to focus on his offense while playing five on five as well as on the power play.
Although $1 million is a bargain, do you feel Bergevin should have stayed away due to his recent history of injuries?
Check out other player profiles:
Ryan White
Travis Moen
Brandon Prust
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Sean is a freelance writer currently contributing to HabsAddict.com. He is also a regular blogger and frequent panelist on the Habs post game show at MontrealHockeyTalk.com You can follow Sean on Twitter.
(Photo by Dale MacMillan/Getty Images North America)
1 comments:
great point about plek...this is really gonna be a year for him to shine! i always thought eller has been developing into a quality two way player, like plek did when he was coming into the league. its about time plek gets relieved of his pk duties and it seems like bergevin brought in the right type of players to do the job. IMO these signings guarantee that we wont be in the mackinon sweep stakes, we just got two quality bottom six forwards to replace guys like diaz and st denis who were playing 2 mintues a game as fourth liners. and altohough resigning moen isnt goign to change the fact that we have zero chance thsi season, im goign to enjoy having him back! these signings give us four lines to work with, which will be a huge upgrade from last year. clearly bergevin realizes that we gonna be in a tough situation for a couple of years, so why not get bruisers to get us through it :)
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