The Winnipeg Jets came to terms with a pair of restricted free agents on Thursday, as they signed both Joel Armia and Adam Lowry (pictured) to two-year, one-way contracts.
Lowry was a third round pick of the Jets back in 2011. The 23-year-old saw his overall numbers decrease last season. He scored seven goals and 17 points in 74 games after putting up 11 goals and 23 points in 80 games the previous year. He’ll come with a cap hit of $1.125 million over the next two years.
Armia was originally selected by the Buffalo Sabres with the 16th overall pick in the 2011 Entry Draft. He was shipped to Winnipeg in the deal that saw Evander Kane head to Buffalo.
The 23-year-old has yet to leave his mark in the NHL, but the Jets clearly believe in the 6'3, 205 pound forward’s upside. Even though they didn’t commit much money to him on this contract ($925,000 AAV), they still gave him a one-way deal. Armia had four goals and 10 points in 43 games in 2015-16.
The two moves leave the Jets with over $8.4 million in cap space. GM Kevin Cheveldayoff will now be able to focus all of his attention on getting a deal done with restricted free agent defenseman Jacob Trouba.
The two sides still haven’t been able to close the gap on the terms of a new deal and next summer’s expansion draft also complicates things.
To protect the maximum amount of players, Winnipeg would only be allowed to protect three defensemen. Currently, they are forced to protect Dustin Byfuglien and Toby Enstrom because they have no-movement clauses. You’d have to think that they’d also want to keep Tyler Myers. Adding Trouba to the fold makes things complicated. All this means is that one of Myers or Trouba could be on the way out.