Miles Morrisseau
ICT
In one of the wildest weeks in National Hockey League history, Mohawk player Brandon Montour has signed a $50-million deal with the Seattle Kraken just days after winning the Stanley Cup in a dramatic game seven as a Florida Panther.
The seven-year contract makes Montour the highest-paid Indigenous player in NHL history, more than doubling his salary with the Panthers, the team that earned its first championship in franchise history with his help.
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The Seattle Kraken breathlessly shared the news on social media and on its website.
“MONTY MANIA IS COMING TO SEATTLE,” the team posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“Big Splash! Kraken Land Elite D-man Montour,” read a headline on its website.
The deal came during a whirlwind week that started on Monday, June 24, with Montour lifting the iconic Stanley Cup after the Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers, and continued on Sunday, June 30, with a parade.
On his first day of free agency on Monday, July 1, Montour was on another team.
“We had the parade yesterday,” Montour told the sports network, TSN Canada, after the deal was announced Monday. “We had all week to … have a good time and be with each other and celebrate with each other. And as all this was going on, I had to figure out what was good for me and my family and my future.”
In an interview with the NHL Network, Montour said he is excited to be heading to the Kraken team, named for a mythical sea monster that is purported to look not unlike a giant octopus.
“One real reason, I felt the love — that management group, that group of players, seeing how loud and how passionate that fan base has been since they’ve been a part of the league,” Montour told the NHL Network.
“There’s no reason not to get excited about being a part of that team and what they have going on,” he said, “and they want me to be a big part of what they have going forward and that just excited myself and my family.”
At a press conference, Kraken General Manager Ron Francis announced the biggest free-agency move in the team’s young history.
“We think the addition of Montour — that’s an offensive piece, and on the back end, he is playing 23, 24 minutes for a cup-winning team,” Francis said. “He brings the Stanley Cup into the locker room with him.”
He added, “Montour has been to the Stanley Cup Finals, now in back-to-back years. You look at his minutes played during the regular season and the playoffs, and he plays a lot of minutes and is put into a lot of different situations.”
Montour leaves the Panthers with a ring and his name on the cup, but he also leaves holding the team’s franchise records for a defenseman in points per season at 73 and with eight goals in a playoff run.
From championship to free agency
The Stanley Cup finals this year went from a formality to a nail-biter after the Panthers dropped a 3-0 series lead to the Edmonton Oilers, who won the next three games to force a pivotal game seven.
It pushed the end of the season to the end of June, right up to the beginning of free agency on July 1.
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By that point, Montour was at the end of a three-year contract with the Panthers that was paying him $3.5 million a year.
The Panthers had an opportunity to extend Montour throughout the year, and in the week after winning the cup they did extend the contract with player Sam Reinhart, who scored the winner in game seven.
Instead, they let Montour go onto the open market as an unrestricted free agent, and on that market he earned a long-term contract that will pay him $7.14 million per season for the next seven years.
The Kraken is the league’s youngest active franchise, though there is a new team in Utah that is set to hit the ice in the upcoming 2024-2025 season. The Kraken launched in 2021 and reached the playoffs in 2023, surprising the defending champions, the Colorado Avalanche, in seven games to win the first playoff series in franchise history.
Headed home
Montour joined a Panthers team that had not won a playoff series in 10 years, and in his first season, they made it to the second round. In his second season, the team made it to the Stanley Cup finals, losing to the Vegas Golden Knights. In his third season, they won it all.
Montour was considered one of the top candidates to hit the open market and ultimately signed one of the biggest deals of the day.
In addition to Montour, other members of the Florida championship team will also be playing in new uniforms next year.
Veteran defenseman Oliver Ekman Larsson signed a four-year, $14-million deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs; Ryan Lomberg will be a Calgary Flame for two years at $2 million a year; and forward Kevin Stenland is headed to the league’s newest franchise in Salt Lake City, Utah, with a mascot still-to-be-named.
The Panther’s back-up goaltender Anthony Stolarz also signed with the Maple Leafs and will be paid $5 million over the next two years to be a backup in Toronto.
The deals came on day one of free agency, with more than a half-dozen other unrestricted free agents on the Panthers’ championship team yet to be signed as of midday on Tuesday, July 2, including Kyle Okposo and Vladimar Tarasenko.
Montour is among an elite group of Indigenous hockey players who have won the Stanley Cup, many on teams that won for the first time. And just like last year’s winner, Zach Whitecloud of the Vegas Golden Knights, Montour will be able to take Lord Stanley’s cup home to First Nations lands for the second time in two years.
Whitecloud took the trophy last year to his Sioux Valley Dakota Nation. Montour is set to take the trophy this year to the Six Nations of the Grand River.
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