Miles Morrisseau
ICT
Indigenous hockey player Brandon Montour and his upstart Florida Panthers shocked the hockey world by defeating the top-seeded Boston Bruins in game seven of the first round of the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup playoffs.
Montour scored two goals in the 5-4 overtime victory on Sunday, April 30, including the game-tying goal with less than a minute left and the Florida net empty.
The defeat of the storied Bruins sent social media into an uproar, with much of the credit going to Montour in what continues to be a record-setting year for the 29-year-old Mohawk from Six Nations of the Grand River.
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Montour set the team record for most game-winning goals this season and set a new franchise scoring record for a defenseman with 73 points. He was modest about his success, however, after the final game Sunday with the Bruins.
“We’ve been doing that all year, especially the last half of this year. We had all the confidence. It was getting pucks on net,” Montour told reporters after the game. “We have top end players in front of the net and me, personally, it’s my job to throw it to them and luckily that one found the net.”
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Panthers Assistant Captain Matthew Tkachuk had high praise for Montour’s performance.
“Monty could have scored before he scored that goal,” Tkachuk said. “Great shot, the goalie didn’t see it, made a great shoulder save. Yeah, it was a huge goal at a very important time for us.”
The Panthers will now face the Toronto Maple Leafs in round two, with their first game set for 7 p.m. ET Tuesday, May 2. The Leafs are the team with the longest Stanley Cup drought in the league. The last time they won the cup was in 1967 after a string of four championships with Anishinaabe George Armstrong as the team’s captain.
Another Indigenous player, Zach Whitecloud, Dakota, is also advancing to the second round with the Vegas Golden Knights’ victory over a dispirited Winnipeg Jets team in five games.
Two other Indigenous players who made the playoffs – Métis players Connor Dewar and Calen Addison with the Minnesota Wild – did not advance to round two after the Minnesota team was defeated in six games in round one by the Dallas Stars.
Clawing into round two
The Bruins had already been crowned as the winner of the NHL Presidents’ Trophy after finishing the season with NHL records in wins and points. They cruised into the playoffs, and the smart money was on them to win the East and bring a cup back to Beantown for the first time since 2011.
For weeks, the team knew that whichever team squeaked into the final wild card spot would have to face the Bruins in Boston at TD Gardens, named for sponsor Toronto-Dominion Bank.
But there would be no home ice advantage, because the Bruins ran into playoff-ready Panthers players who had proven to be road warriors. The Panthers had clawed their way into the final wild card spot, winning six and tying one of their last eight games to make the tournament.
Montour scored points in every game during that run, including four points — 1 goal and 3 assists — in a 7-2 rout of the Ottawa Senators.
The Panthers would go on to win three games in Boston, including the deciding game. In addition to his game seven heroics, Montour had five goals and three assists in the series and averaged nearly 25 minutes of ice time per game.
“It’s more than confidence. It’s experience, too,” Panthers Coach Paul Maurice responded when asked about Montour’s emergence as an elite defender. “He has some really high-end talent and skill. He skates like no one else but he’s a gamer, too. He’s driving. He is up and down the bench barking. He wants to go. He wants to win.”
Montour described the feeling in the dressing room as the team was headed into overtime with the Bruins.
“It’s exciting – it’s crazy when you score with less than a minute,” Montour said. “It’s game seven. Anything can happen and the boys showed up.”
Player Carter Verhaeghe scored in the extra frame, sending Florida on to the second round and leaving the Bruins wondering where it all went wrong.
The face-off between the Panthers and the Maple Leafs will once again renew whispers that the Toronto team is cursed. That’s hard to say, but one thing is certain – the Maple Leafs have not lifted the Stanley Cup since they had an Indigenous captain more than 50 years ago.
Whitecloud and the Golden Knights will take on the Edmonton Oilers in round two, starting on Wednesday, May 2. The Oilers are led by the two-headed scoring monster of Leon Draisaitl and Conner McDavid, who finished first and second in NHL scoring this season.
Whitecloud, however, contributed some heavy minutes on defense and finished the round one series with more than 21 minutes of ice time in the deciding game. He also got time on the penalty kill unit, and finished the series plus one.
On Indigenous lands
Montour and Whitecloud will each compete in round two in Canadian arenas where Indigenous land acknowledgements are part of the opening ceremony of every game.
In a pre-recorded video before Oilers’ games in Edmonton, former Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations Wilton Littlechild welcomes the players and the fans.
“As Chief, I welcome you here to Treaty 6 territory. This land has been the traditional region for homelands of the Métis people of Alberta, the Inuit and ancestral territory of the Cree, Dene, Blackfoot, Saulteaux and Nakota Sioux people since time immemorial.”
At the Scotiabank Arena, Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment offers an Indigenous land acknowledgement before every game of the Leafs and the National Basketball Association’s Toronto Raptors.
“We wish to express gratitude to Mother Earth for her bounty and to honor all the original peoples of the land, including the Anishinaabeg, the Chippewa, the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Wendat and the Haudenosaunee,” the announcer states.
“The land on which we operate has been, and is still, governed by the Three Fire Confederacy and Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt, as well as in more recent times by the Nanfan Treaty, Treaty 13 and the Williams Treaties.”
The Dallas Stars will face the Seattle Kraken in round two, with the first game on Tuesday, May 2. Still to be decided is the final playoff slot, with the New York Rangers facing the New Jersey Devils in game seven of round one on Monday, May 1.
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