Blake Montgomery Tipped To Reach Top
Bermudian ice hockey player Blake Montgomery has been tipped to reach the pinnacle of his sport – the National Hockey League – by a top video analyst.
In a recent article in The Athletic, Billy Sullivan, who runs Sully Hockey, a video analysis and development business that works with some of hockey’s top prospects, hailed Blake’s development in the sport.
He started watching him during the pandemic, playing at the Seacoast Performance Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 2021.
Halfway through the following season, Sullivan, who has also worked with Blake’s older brother, Bryce Montgomery, a 2021 NHL Draft pick of the Carolina Hurricanes, said Blake was beginning to show huge potential.
“Man, the kid’s starting to look like a prospect now,” he remembers thinking.
“Man, if that’s what he looks like going up and down the rink, that looks like an NHL winger on occasion.”
At 18, Blake was playing for the Lincoln Stars in the USHL.
By the end of the season, the 6ft 4in power winger had registered 22 goals and 43 points in 58 games.
NHL side, the Ottawa Senators, led by head amateur scout Don Boyd, started watching Blake from the start of his rookie year and drafted him in June last year.
“We liked his size, skating and skill ratio,” Boyd said. “And he’s got puck skills that are really very good as far as handling the puck and the ability to play in traffic.
“He has that separation speed that is so important in today’s game. There were a lot of good things.”
Almost a year later, Blake joined the London Knights on an OHL Scholarship and Development Agreement in November last year.
“I think in an ideal world, he could be a big part of a very good team,” Sullivan said.
“I really believe I’m going to see him make his living at the National Hockey League level despite him not being a top pick. He just has so much runway in front of him.
“He has stuff to improve on, but if you had to build a prototype of an NHL winger, he looks a little like Blake.”
When the play-offs ended, Blake had scored 26 goals and had 60 points in 68 regular-season and play-off games.
Blake became an integral part of the Knights’ title success in the OHL, going on a 14-game streak from mid-December to mid-January, scoring 12 goals and 24 points.
Next year, Blake will take another step at the University of Wisconsin.
Bryce, a 6ft 5ins, 231-pound defenceman, played for the Bloomington Bison, the American Hockey League affiliate of the Hurricanes, last season.
He said that he and Blake were inseparable.
“We were very competitive with each other. We definitely fought a lot,” Bryce said.
“You ask anybody about Blake around the hockey world, and I don’t think anybody is ever going to say a bad thing about him,” Bryce said.
“Everybody had nothing but just the best to say about Blake, and that made me pretty proud. And it’s very obvious. That just goes to show the type of person that he is,” Bryce said. “It was pretty cool to hear everybody talk about him like they did.”
Blake said he is determined to fulfil his huge potential.
“I’m really just more confident in myself and knowing what I’m capable of,” he said. “I’ve learned that I can do whatever’s needed and step into any role.”
