Armstrong Aims to Head Back Stateside as ICE Roster Shifts to Wenatchee

Armstrong Aims to Head Back Stateside as ICE Roster Shifts to Wenatchee

WENATCHEE, Wash. – After three years in Canada, Easton Armstrong is headed back to the States.

The 2003-born Armstrong will be one of a large and talented group of 20-year-old players looking to claim one of three available slots on the Wenatchee Wild roster, with the 2023-24 season set to officially start in just two months.

Armstrong came up through the Los Angeles Jr. Kings program, scoring 92 points over two years on the Jr. Kings’ 14-and-under roster before splitting the 2018-19 season between the program’s 15-only and 16-and-under rosters. He scored 72 points in 49 contests in 2019-20 for Los Angeles’s 16U squad, leading them to the USA Hockey national tournament before seeing their championship hopes dashed in the sport’s COVID shutdowns that March.

Armstrong has surrounded himself with good resources along the way, including plenty of reliable resources to ask about his game and navigating the junior hockey landscape. His best resource is right in-house – his dad, Derek, played more than 1,000 games in professional hockey, including 477 in the National Hockey League. He also knows what to look forward to in Wenatchee – thanks to Wenatchee’s long history as a popular destination for California players when the city hosted junior “A” hockey, he has two very trustworthy friends to ask for information on the area.

“I’m super excited. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Wenatchee,” said Armstrong. “My two linemates with the Jr. Kings, Parker Murray and Ean Somoza, played there. I played with them forever – they loved playing there, so I’m definitely really excited to be in Wenatchee and to be able to play in the U.S. Division.”

After earning a 10th-round selection by the Regina Pats in the Western Hockey League bantam draft in 2018, his time in the WHL started with a two-game call-up to Regina in late January of the 2019-20 season. The “COVID season” of 2020-21 started with an outlier, as Armstrong departed Canada to head to the United States Premier Hockey League, scoring points in all four games he played for the Utah Outliers during the month of November. The WHL season finally got underway that March, with Armstrong scoring two points in 23 appearances.

He was more than ready for a full season in 2021-22, notching 10 points in 57 games that year. It didn’t take him long to surpass that total last year, with 22 points in just 39 games before heading east to Winnipeg in an early-January deal for Omen Harmacy. He notched nine points the rest of the way with the ICE, and appeared in every one of Winnipeg’s playoff games on their run to the WHL Final.

Armstrong has spent much of his summer skating and working out at the Drill House Sports Center in Centennial, Colorado, owned by former NHL players Eric LaCroix, David Clarkson and John Mitchell. Though he takes his game seriously, he doesn’t mind having some fun playing the game he loves – throughout his time in junior hockey, he has earned a reputation for being his team’s go-to player for social media content and occasional hijinks.

“They started making the TikToks (in Regina) and I ended up taking the phone one day, and it was just history after that,” said Armstrong. “Every TikTok, I would always carry the phone around and ask the questions. I don’t know, I think it just kind of happened.”

For Easton Armstrong, the 2023-24 season will be all about making the right moves, starting with earning a spot on the Wild roster and making the move to Wenatchee. He hopes his final move of the season will be helping to move the Wild to the very top of the junior hockey world.

(Note: this is the 12th in a series of offseason profiles on players set to join the Wild following the relocation of the Winnipeg ICE. Previous profiles are linked below.)