Paired With The Kraken And Now Team Canada 

There was a time Kraken veteran Brandon Montour was just a mid-20s newcomer partaking in his first IIHF World Hockey Championship in Slovakia for a silver medalist Canadian squad.

Montour, 31, will play in his second world tourney starting this weekend in Denmark while Kraken teammate and frequent defensive pairing partner Ryker Evans reprises his onetime role as the 20-something newbie on a Team Canada squad hoping to medal again. And Kraken general manager Jason Botterill, who co-managed the Canadian team from six years ago along with team president Ron Francis and saw a young Montour in his international debut up close, said Evans, 23, can only benefit from his first international hockey foray.

“This is a great opportunity for him to one, develop a reputation with them,” Botterill said of Evans and Hockey Canada, the governing body that will pick that country’s team for next February’s Winter Olympics. “But also, for him to learn from some of the best in the world.

“You know, having a (Nathan) MacKinnon and (Sidney) Crosby over there, I’m just anticipating that he’ll acclimate very well to the international game and its big ice surface because of how well he skates.

“For a kid who hasn’t played a whole lot of international hockey, it will be a great experience for him to round out his game.”

The Kraken have eight players, one prospect and equipment manager Jeff Camelio representing six countries at the tournament. But of those players, Evans and Montour stand out given they’re on the same national team and had the third most ice time together this past season among Kraken defensive pairings.

NHL rinks are 200 feet long and 85 feet wide, but European surfaces are 197 feet by 98.5 feet. The similar length but larger width to the international game gives players much more room to show off skilled play, minus the tight checking so commonplace in NHL competition.

This year’s tournament, which runs through May 25, kicked off Friday in Herning, Denmark, and Stockholm, Sweden, with a slew of games, including a 5-0 win by Team USA over the host Danish side. Kraken center Matty Beniers scored twice while goalie Joey Daccord picked up the shutout by stopping 26 shots in front of a packed house of 10,500 people at the Jyske Bank Boske arena in Herning.

Canada’s team, captained by Pittsburgh Penguins star Crosby, plays its opener in Denmark on Saturday against Slovenia. Unlike the Winter Olympics or the recent 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in February, the world championships feature only NHL players whose teams have been eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention.

That makes it a slightly less high-caliber event, though its century-long tradition overseas – where fans for decades considered it their Stanley Cup due to Europeans having almost no representation on NHL teams – still give it plenty of intensity. Czechia defeated upstart Switzerland in last year’s gold medal game and then beat them again on Friday in one of the tournament’s round-robin openers.

Canada won a record 28th gold medal two years ago, one more than the Russian side banned from participating of late due to that country’s invasion of Ukraine. Czechia is third with 13 golds while the U.S. has just one from actual world tournament play in 1933 – it automatically was declared world champ a second time in 1960 by winning Olympic gold – and enters this year’s event with Kraken players Beniers, Daccord, Mikey Eyssimont and trainer Camelio hoping to end the 92-year drought.

Montour only played three games at the 2019 worlds due to injury. But Botterill remembers him showing off the skills that have made him a prominent Kraken threat.

“You saw at the international level what a great skater he was,” Botterill said. “And just, in that open ice, the impact that he could have on the game. And that’s where, no matter how much ice time Ryker has, I think he's just really going to look good over there because of his skating ability.”

The left-handed shot Evans and right-handed Montour are both under Kraken control for years to come, meaning they’ll likely see plenty more side-by-side ice time well after this tournament ends.

And beyond the pair familiarizing themselves even more with one another overseas, having Montour in the Canadian dressing room will undoubtedly ease some nerves for Evans as he tiptoes around some of the game’s greats.

“I think it’s big,” Botterill said. “And you know Monty’s personality, too, of being very upbeat. I also think Hockey Canada does a very good job in a collaboration model, bringing the team together.”

Botterill never played in this event, but did win a record three gold medals for Canada at the Under-20 IIHF World Junior Championships from 1994-1996. He said he learned immensely from competing against top caliber players globally in “pressure packed situations” but also from watching how his elite teammates comported themselves in practices.

And unlike that tournament, which lasts 10 days over Christmas and New Year’s, this one goes 16 days, and Botterill feels that extra time truly offers a chance to absorb good habits.

“You pick up things from coaches, but the amount of things you learn from players just by practicing with them on the ice can be huge,” Botterill said. “I think that’s one of the biggest traits you can take away from this. The fact that some of the elite players like Crosby and MacKinnon are over there, and you can learn so much just by watching them.

“I saw that in Pittsburgh watching Crosby and how he was in practice,” former longtime Penguins assistant GM Botterill added. “That’s where he created such a culture in Pittsburgh. Not just through his words, but through his actions in practice, and I think he'll do the same thing here. So, it will help that Ryker (Evans) gets to see that.”

And bring some of it back to a Kraken team looking to take its own game to a higher, championship caliber level.