The Seattle Kraken scored early, often, and in a variety of ways Tuesday, hanging a crooked 8-2 score on the Montreal Canadiens, embarrassing them in their building and getting the road trip off on an extremely positive note.
The big score brought with it some massive stats from a few players, most notably Seattle’s two biggest offseason acquisitions: Brandon Montour, who had a natural hat trick and one assist, and Chandler Stephenson, who had four assists. In addition to Montour’s three goals, Jamie Oleksiak and Ryker Evans also had goals, setting a new franchise record for number of defensemen scoring in a game.
“There’s no secret about really scoring goals in this league,” coach Dan Bylsma said. “You’ve got to have shot volume, you’ve got to have guys at the net, and you’ve got to have people in and around the net. And it’s not just one guy. It’s two guys who can converge on the net and get the opportunity, and tonight, in the first [period] in particular, we were very good at that.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from a lopsided 8-2 Kraken win over the Canadiens.
Takeaway #1: Natural Montour
It was a little surprising to hear that this was the first hat trick in Montour’s career. He has been so incredibly good for the Kraken that I just assumed that he had previously had games like this, where several of his opportunities had found the back of the net.
In this game, it seemed like everything the Kraken threw at Canadiens goalies Sam Montembeault and eventually Cayden Primeau had a chance of going in, and that was especially true for Montour, who only had four shots on goal in the game.
Montour’s goals came when the game was largely out of reach already for the Habs, with the first being a seeing-eye wrister from the point on the power play at 1:32 of the second period to make it 5-1. The second was my personal favorite goal of the game for the Kraken, coming off a set face-off play in which Jamie Oleksiak found Montour cutting below the defense to make it 6-1 at 8:44 of the second.
DOUBLE MONTY! 🚨
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 30, 2024
Set play off the face-off, and Brandon Montour gets his second of the night. #SeaKraken making it look easy tonight. 6-1 now.
Watch out for MTL to start getting chippy as this thing wears on. We’re still just halfway through. pic.twitter.com/7j2AQtPlKR
I mean, look at that! Just look at it!
Shane Wright wins the draw back to Jaden Schwartz (who also quietly had a goal and two assists) at the top of the circle. He passes to Oleksiak at the left point, and you can see that as the defenders are being drawn toward the Big Rig, he has zero interest in shooting, knowing that Montour is sliding down around the right dot. Meanwhile, Wright and Oliver Bjorkstrand are shifting toward the slot to pull the lower defenders over, and now Oleksiak has a seam for Montour. Indeed, Oleksiak finds Montour, who shoots and then gets his own rebound.
Oleksiak said they “freestyled” the play, rather than executing something that was drawn up, but they did at least discuss what they were going to do…
“You know what? Jaden just kind of told me to slip backside there,” Montour said. “I don’t know who was covering, but I obviously got lost, and it went to the big guy there, and he found me back side. So, it was a great look by both of them.”
Montour capped off his hat trick with a one-time blast on a 4-on-3 power play to make it 7-1 at 14:12 of the third.
Adam Larsson then pulled one of the more hilarious stunts we’ve seen from a Kraken player, throwing his helmet on the ice as Montour went past the bench.
Adam Larsson throws his helmet on the ice to celebrate Brandon Montour’s first career hat trick. #SeaKraken
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 30, 2024
😂 🎩 🦁 pic.twitter.com/hKE5CR86Q8
Takeaway #2: Big night for Stephenson too
The other big offseason acquisition was very noticeable in this game, as well, setting up four of Seattle’s eight goals.
I said recently on a Sound Of Hockey Podcast episode that one of the challenges for Stephenson in breaking through with the Kraken fanbase is that he hasn’t historically been a big goal-scorer. He does many things well, like winning face-offs and board battles and bringing a calming influence on the ice, but those things don’t always jump off the page for the more casual fan.
He demonstrated on Tuesday why his less tangible attributes are important, though, with so many of his plays directly leading to goals from his teammates.
“He’s such an intelligent player, he’s such a calm player,” Bylsma said of Stephenson. “He brings that presence and that smarts and intelligence to our team. And in a centerman down the middle of the rink, it’s much needed for this group.”
The most memorable play Stephenson made was in the lead-up to Schwartz’s power-play goal at 7:27 of the first that made it 3-0. This one didn’t come from a typical power-play setup in the offensive zone.
Instead, Stephenson received the slingshot pass back from Montour at Seattle’s hash marks and went on a 180ish-foot journey all the way to below Montreal’s goal line. He effortlessly cruised through the neutral zone, sliced between Montreal’s defenders at the blue line, then instinctively twisted a pass out into the slot, where Schwartz was waiting and got on the other end of it.
Beautiful.
Stephenson won’t get four assists every night, but it is nice to see him get rewarded for the things that he quietly does well.
Takeaway #3: Joey played a surprisingly big part
Last time I wrote a Three Takeaways, two games ago, I vowed in the comment section to never discuss Kraken goaltending again because of the many dissenting voices that tend to pop up in the comments and ruin my day (not really) when I do write about them.
But…
The plot is thickening on the goaltending front. Before Seattle’s 3-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Oct. 23 I had already started sensing the winds blowing toward a less even split in the crease. I asked Bylsma before that game what it would take for him to start leaning on one of his goalies more than the other. He gave a lengthy and thoughtful reply, but he ended it with, “Their play will also dictate the kind of rotation we have going forward.”
While it wasn’t clear from that conversation that Joey Daccord would be the guy Bylsma would eventually turn to with more frequency, I thought this was where things would head. Indeed, Daccord got his third consecutive start on Tuesday, and although the scoreboard told a tale of a Kraken massacre on the Canadiens, Seattle actually relied quite heavily on its netminder in this game.
He came up big on a number of occasions, including a clear-cut breakaway for Alex Newhook in the first period and a 2-on-1 that turned into a partial breakaway for Logan Mailloux in the third.
Where Daccord was especially important in this game, though, was late in the first after Cole Caufield got an easy shoo-in goal from the top of the crease to get Montreal on the board at 4-1. While the lead was ultimately insurmountable, the Habs had life at the end of that frame and pumped five shots on Daccord in the final three minutes. He stood tall, taking wind out of the sails of the Habs as they headed to intermission, but if they had gotten a second goal in those closing minutes, then this could have been turned into an uncomfortable game for Kraken fans.
Instead, Montour came out in the second period and put a nail… then another nail… then another nail in Montreal’s coffin, and Seattle cruised to one of its more disproportionate wins in franchise history.
Daccord ended the Kraken-Canadiens game with 28 saves on 30 shots and 3.04 goals saved above expected. Would you believe the Canadiens actually had 61 percent of the shot quality in this game?
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
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