SEATTLE — Over the previous two seasons, Brandon Montour has taken the ice for a combined 146 regular season games, another 45 in the playoffs and had total ice time equaling more than three full days.
That’s a lot of hockey, even for the most devoted of players.
And yet, taking it a little easy and slowly building into Montour’s first season with the Kraken was never a consideration — for both Montour and first-year coach Dan Bylsma.
“I want to be on the ice. I want to play 30, 45 minutes if I could,” Montour said. “Whatever it takes to get the wins. I signed up for this so it’s all good on my side.”
Four games aren’t a fair period to make any wide sweeping generalizations about a team or an individual player. But it is notable just how much Montour has been on the ice through the first handful of games with his new team.
There is no acclimation period. Montour has jumped right in with a heavy load of minutes that shows no signs of slowing down.
Entering Thursday night’s game against Philadelphia, Montour was second in the league in average time on ice when teams are playing at even strength. Montour was at 22 minutes, 10 seconds with only Columbus defenseman Zach Werenski averaging more.
Throw in ice time as the point on one of Seattle’s two power play units and a little bit of penalty kill action and Montour is playing more than 24 minutes per game. While that number doesn’t get him at the top of the league, it’s still a heavy load this early in the season.
Montour played just 19 minutes in Thursday night’s 6-4 win over Philadelphia that included his first goal with the Kraken. His ice time was slightly lower due to Seattle being on the penalty kill for chunks of the game, including his own roughing penalty in the third period.
“When you meet him and talk to him, he’s eager to play. He’s eager to play a lot of minutes,” Bylsma said.
Montour wouldn’t have it any other way, frankly, even though last season didn’t end for him until late June when he lifted the Stanley Cup with Florida. As a result, his offseason training program was truncated to an intense five weeks to get ready for his first season with the Kraken.
While the bulk of the training was a bit condensed, Montour is naturally active. A large chunk of his summer was spent on Lake Muskoka a few hours north of Toronto, mixing in kayaking, swimming and hiking to his offseason regimen.
“When you lose earlier, you don’t make playoffs, you have more time. But the plan is to go all the way every single year,” Montour said. “So it depends on how it is, but for the most part, I mean, my trainer and I, we have a good program. We know what my body kind of needs at this point. I know what my body needs, and it’s kind of what it is now.”
Bylsma grinned following morning skate on Thursday when reminded of how much Montour has played the previous two seasons.
“I think when it comes to playing that much hockey, which he has for the last two seasons, it really is a mental thing as you take it forward. It’s a lot of hockey, if you think it’s a lot of hockey,” Bylsma said. “We all want to play that long into the spring and into the summer, as he has done. That’s (a) mentality I don’t worry about with (Montour). He’s a guy who wants to get out there every chance he can get to play the game.”
For what the Kraken are paying Montour — an average of $7.14 million per season for the next seven seasons — he should be playing big minutes.
Last season, Vince Dunn topped out at just over 23 minutes per game. Montour seems poised to blow past that mark based on his start to the season.
Kraken 6, Flyers 4, Thursday at Climate Pledge Arena
Notable: The foundation of the Kraken making a playoff run two seasons ago was scoring contributions throughout the lineup. The fourth line. The third defensive pairing. Everyone chipped in.
It’s early, but the Kraken are showing similar traits.
Seattle received goals from six different players and points from 13 total, most coming during a raucous second period where the Kraken turned a 2-1 deficit into a 5-2 lead. A sloppy third period nearly gave away all of that lead before Oliver Bjorkstrand scored on a breakaway with 5:09 left.
Jared McCann pulled the Kraken even with a power-play goal beating Flyers goalie Ivan Fedotov five-hole, but it was a three-goal outburst in less than 3 minutes that broke the game open. Eeli Tolvanen scored the first on a rebound, Jordan Eberle finished a beautiful sequence off passes from McCann and Yanni Gourde, and Shane Wright finished the flurry with his first of the season 8 seconds after Eberle scored.
The goals from Brandon Montour and Wright give the Kraken 12 different goal scorers in five games.
Chandler Stephenson had an assist in his 500th career game.
Philipp Grubauer had shaky first and third periods in goal, getting beat on a wrap around from Scott Laughton and giving up a second to Laughton late in the first period. He made key saves on Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim in the second period, only to get beat for goals from Cam York and Jamie Drysdale 2 1/2 minutes apart in the third and trimmed the Kraken lead to 5-4.
Gourde finished a goal short of a Gordie Howe hat trick — he got the assist and the fight came after his goal was waved off for being kicked into the net.
If there is one concern out of the victory, Vince Dunn played only 13 minutes. He went to the locker room after an awkward fall late in the first period, returned to play a little bit in the second, but didn’t take a shift the final 23 minutes of the game. Coach Dan Bylsma said afterward that Dunn not playing in the third was mostly precautionary, but he would need to be evaluated regarding his availability for Saturday.
Quotable: “He’s been chirping me a lot because apparently I don’t pass to him,” McCann joked about assist to Eberle. “He likes to drive the net, so I just tried to pull up there and find him.”
Goal of the game: There wasn’t a prettier goal than Eberle’s and Wright’s first of the season was notable, but let’s go with Montour’s first with the Kraken on a slap shot from the point that helped stabilize a shaky first period.
Star of the game: McCann didn’t have his first three-point game until game No. 41 last season. McCann’s goal was a half slap-shot from the top of the circles, but his best play was the pass to Eberle for a tap-in goal at the back post. McCann had an open lane to shoot, only to drop a perfect pass to Eberle for the easy goal.
On tap: The Kraken face their first Pacific Division foe of the season facing the surprising Calgary Flames on Saturday night. Calgary is off to a 4-0 start and will be coming in after three full days off.
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