The Penticton Vees have signed forward Jamie Armstrong the team announced Thursday.
Armstrong, 18, started the season in the United States Hockey League (USHL) with the Sioux City Musketeers, picking up a goal and two points with 21 penalty-minutes in 13 games. Prior to joining Sioux City, the Warwick, Rhode Island product played prep hockey at Avon Old Farms School for two seasons in Connecticut.
Last year at Avon, Armstrong scored 22 goals and compiling 51 points in just 27 games, finishing second in team scoring. Those numbers caught the attention of scouts as he was ranked 124th by NHL Central Scouting for the 2016 NHL Draft last June. In two seasons with Avon, the six-foot-two, 190-pound winger amassed 33 goals, 58 assists for 91 points in 53 games. The Northeastern University commit also played with the Neponset Valley River Rats in the Massachusetts Select League; the same program that Vees’ alum Miles Gendron played for. In 27 games over two seasons with the River Rats, Armstrong tallied 22 goals and 40 points.
Armstrong's father Bill is the director of amateur scouting for the St. Louis Blues and has held that position since August of 2010. Bill played four seasons of junior hockey in the OHL, winning the Memorial Cup in 1989 with the Oshawa Generals, and was a third-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers in 1990. His nine-year pro career was split between the American Hockey League and International Hockey league.
Armstrong will make his Vees debut in Coquitlam against the Express tomorrow night and will wear number 25. In adding Armstrong, the Vees traded forward Ben Brar (98) to the Prince George Spruce Kings for future considerations. Brar was in his second season with the Vees and had a pair of goals and four points in 21 games. In his rookie year, the Abbotsford native collected four goals and nine points in 55 games.