Brandon Montour was almost a Toronto Maple Leaf.
The Stanley Cup-winning defenceman joined TSN’s Mark Roe and Frankie Corrado recently on OverDrive and admitted before signing a seven-year $49.9 million contract with the Seattle Kraken this summer, he and his family were excited, intrigued and pondering joining the Maple Leafs:
“There were conversations,” Montour said. “You look at their roster, you look at yourself and you know, for me, look at myself and saw the player, and definitely could help. It was intriguing, you know, in that week. There were talks, but again, there’s a lot that goes into it with family with what they need and what I need, business decisions and such. There were definitely talks, we were excited, we thought about it, but tons of options for us, and grateful for Seattle and excited for that experience and excited to get down there, to what you can say, is a new organization.”
After losing out on Montour, the Maple Leafs went on to sign Chris Tanev, who they’ve been linked to since Brad Treliving took over as general manager and Montour’s former teammate in Florida, Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Both Tanev and Ekman-Larsson will help improve the Leafs’ blue line, but neither defensemen has the two-way ceiling Montour possesses.
Much like every team in the league, the Maple Leafs could have used Montour on their back end. He would have been a perfect fit as a right-handed blueliner for the top power-play unit, and top-four of their defense core for years to come. The 30-year-old registered 33 points in 66 games last season and added another 11 points in 24 playoff games on route to hoisting Lord Stanley. He’s a great skater, has tremendous offensive instincts and is much stronger defensively than many give him credit for.
While playing for the ‘hometown’ team is something Montour has thought long and hard about, it sounds like his close friends and some neighbours have been pushing for him to sign in Toronto for quite some time now:
“You know, you obviously get that, especially now with just little things like me being up north now and my friends and neighbours caught wind. I’m not much in the media but people obviously watch that, fans of the Leafs, fans in Canada. Just being from here, your friends and family hear it on the radio, rumors and what not. For me, the last three, four months, just so focused on trying to win this thing for our team.”
“Again, that was something for my agent to kind of control, to work on, while you know, my whole focus was on hockey.”
Leafs fans look away. Montour would have been a great fit in Toronto and after hearing how close he was to signing on the dotted line, add his name to the long list of the ‘ones who got away’.
