The Seattle Kraken may have to do without one of the players they lean on most after Brandon Montour exited Thursday night’s road game against the Tampa Bay Lightning with a lower-body injury.
Seattle confirmed Montour would not return. The exact point at which the injury happened wasn’t immediately clear, though it may have come on his final shift early in the second period, when he was tripped by Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov and appeared to go down awkwardly.
Montour, 32, has played a heavy role for the Kraken right from the start of the season. He has five assists and no goals in seven games, and he leads the team in ice time at a little more than 24 and a half minutes per night.
That workload is nothing new for him. Last season, he posted 11 goals and 21 assists for 32 points in 64 games while again pacing Seattle in average ice time at about 22 and a half minutes.
The Brantford, Ontario, native is in his third season with the Kraken after signing a seven-year, $50 million contract as an unrestricted free agent in July of 2024.
Montour was originally taken by the Anaheim Ducks in the second round of the 2014 NHL Entry Draft. He spent the first two-plus seasons of his career in Anaheim before being dealt to the Buffalo Sabres at the 2019 deadline for defenseman Brendan Guhle and a first-round pick. He played 112 games for Buffalo across three seasons before landing with the Florida Panthers at the 2021 deadline for a third-round pick.
His best stretch came in Florida, where he turned in a career season in 2022-23 with 16 goals and 57 assists for 73 points in 80 games. He also helped the Panthers win the Stanley Cup in 2024 before heading to Seattle.
After Thursday’s game in Tampa, the Kraken close out a five-game road trip against the Panthers on Saturday.
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