I agree, for now 2019 seems to be more compacted and hopefully resilient near the pole, same as 2012 and unlike 2016.
Why "hopefully resilient" if we say that near the pole will re-freeze early September, though? If you mean wishing well for arctic sea ice in general, through the seasons, - then it's not much difference IMO. Multi-year ice is pretty much history now, anyway; and winter will refreeze "near the pole" quite very well anyhow - next freezing season, i mean. Far not enough ocean heat content to prevent it - for now.
Meanwhile, as if recent insane temperatures in northern parts of Canada and predicted very strong high over Greenland would not be enough, - we now have masses of hot air from Sahara and Spain heading towards Greenland,
they say. It's that same heatwave which killed people in Europe just few days ago which now goes to "visit". Yet even worse its effects will be if that high pressure would then "anchor" itself in the region through self-enhancing clear sky extra heating.
We know it can happen, because it already happened in very similar circumstances: in 2010 over central Russia, about same time of the year (July / August), more than a month of unprecedented heat and clear skies - and in that case air masses came from dry desert lands much closer to the equator, too.
Almost choking Moscow and whole regions in smoke from all the fires around, destroying ~90000 km2 of farmlands, etc - saying this just to illustrate how big, bad and long those "stuck" highs can be. Game-changer kind.