Meet Blake Montgomery, the Senators prospect taking one 'big step' after another

Billy Sullivan talks about the Montgomery boys as like family to him at this point.

Sullivan, who runs Sully Hockey, a video analysis and development business that works with some of hockeys top prospects, began working with Bryce Montgomery, a 2021 NHL Draft pick of the Carolina Hurricanes, before the pandemic.

Advertisement He started watching his younger brother Blake during the pandemic when Blake played at the Seacoast Performance Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 2021.

In those days, Sullivan says Blake was like a baby deer.

It was like, Man, this kid can skate but look at his form, Sullivan said.

I dont want to say he was knock-kneed but he clearly was not a man at all.

Coming out of the pandemic, Blake wasnt an NHL prospect.

After a year at Seacoast, he played at Mount St.

Charles Academy in 2022-23.

As a 2005 birth year, that should have been his NHL Draft year.

He registered just 33 points in 52 games for the prep schools U18 team, eighth on the team in scoring.

He was never listed by NHL Central Scouting.

But one season at a time, he took either a little bit of a step or a big step.

Halfway through his Seacoast season, Sullivan found himself thinking, Man, the kids starting to look like a prospect now.

At Mount St.

Charles Academy, Sullivan then saw him take off a few times and caught himself thinking, Man, if thats what he looks like going up and down the rink, that looks like an NHL winger on occasion.

At 18, he made the Lincoln Stars in the USHL, and after treading water for the first couple of months, Sullivan watched him realize Oh, I can do this here and take off again, this time as one of the better players in the league as the season went on.

Still, at midseason, he wasnt ranked by NHL Central Scouting as an overager.

It wasnt until their final ranking, after hed already turned 19 and had registered 22 goals and 43 points in 58 games, that he appeared on their final list for the 2024 class, landing at No.

101 among North American skaters.

Some NHL clubs had caught on earlier, though, and among them were the Senators, led by head amateur scout Don Boyd.

Boyd told The Athletic that his scouts followed Blake from the onset of his rookie year as an overager in the USHL.

Advertisement During the second half, he said he was one of the better, if not the best player on the ice sometimes.

At the time, he was listed at 6-foot-3.5 and 180 pounds and they were struck by the same thing everyone is when they watch Blake: that he can fly.

We liked his size, skating and skill ratio, Boyd said.

And hes 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 todays game.

There was a lot of good things.

In the fourth round, they called his name with the 117th pick in the draft.

Almost a year later, he has taken another one of those big steps Sullivan has kept seeing, this time with the London Knights, where Sullivan is a scout and helped bring him and Bryce into the organization at different points.

Tonight, he and the Knights will play their first game of the Memorial Cup in Rimouski, nine days after Blake helped them win the OHL Championship with one of the defining plays of its decisive Game 5.

The play was vintage Blake taking off up the rink, driving and getting a shot off at the far post, his teammate Landon Sim batting it in for the 4-2 lead.

LANDON SIM BATS IT OUT OF MID-AIR IN THE CLUTCH London leads 4-2 with less than five minutes to go! pic.twitter.com/bIb7IRz3DO TSN (@TSN_Sports) May 16, 2025 That is a flash of what I see him doing at the NHL level, Sullivan said.

I think in an ideal world, he could be a big part of a very good team.

I really believe Im 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 playoffs were over, Blake had registered 26 goals and 60 points in 68 combined regular-season and playoff games.

But the numbers undersell his impact with the Knights.

After making the difficult decision to leave Lincoln (where hed started the year with 10 points in 10 games) and become one of the first players to make the move from the USHL to the CHL following the NCAA move to open up eligibility, Montgomery became an integral part of this years Knights.

Advertisement When we were recruiting him, obviously in London this year we were hoping to go on a run and for him to be a part of that atmosphere and in a locker room with 10 or 15 other kids who are trying to play in the National Hockey League, Sullivan said.

It was Hey, theres a lot of different ways that this could go.

You could be on a first line with (Denver) Barkey and (Sam) OReilly or you could be on a third line with (William) Nicholl and neither of those are better than the other.

You have a lot of opportunity in front of you to experience different parts of the lineup and youre going to need to have that in your arsenal when you get to Ottawa one day.

And thats exactly what he did.

When key members of the team left for the World Juniors, Blake went on a 14-game streak from mid-December to mid-January that saw him score 12 goals and 24 points.

He has worn so many hats and just keeps finding different ways to be impactful as a big part of this Knights team, Sullivan said.

Knights associate general manager Rob Simpson said there were different points this season where Blake was leading our team and pushing our team along.

He can play with an Easton Cowan or a Denver Barkey because he can play at that pace.

If you want him to go down and play a checkdown role he can do that as well because the speed is there and hes good on the forecheck and brings a lot of elements, Simpson said.

Next year, hell look take another step at the University of Wisconsin.

Hell have come a long way.

Home for Blake is Bowie, Maryland, and Bermuda.

He was in Bermuda, where his mom, Kimberly Robinson, is from, when the Senators called his name.

They go whenever they get the chance.

Its not a bad spot to spend your summers, he said, laughing.

He grew up in Bowie after his dad, Matthew, moved there from Minnesota to become a police officer (hes now retired after 22 years as a cop).

He and Bryce got into hockey because Matthew played Division III at St.

Marys University.

Their grandmother, Debbie Montgomery, co-founded the Mariucci Inner City Hockey Starter Association in St.

Paul and was the first Black woman officer in the St.

Paul police department in 1975 and the first Black woman elected to its city council in 2004.

Advertisement There are athletes on both sides of the family outside of hockey, too.

Kimberly was a Division I basketball star at the University of California, Berkley, where she got her masters and became a psychologist.

The boys uncle Mark on their dads side also went to Wisconsin, where he was a running back for the Badgers, won a Rose Bowl, and was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles.

One of their aunts played professional basketball.

Debbie was also a speed skater who nearly made the Olympics once.

Bryce played some football and Blake played some soccer, but they both gravitated to hockey.

Growing up, Bryce, who attended each of the OHL Championship games, said this week that he and Blake were inseparable.

They were also classic brothers.

We were very competitive with each other.

We definitely fought a lot, Bryce said, laughing.

We didnt like each other a lot.

We talked about hating each other a few times for sure but thats pretty normal with two brothers who are super close in age growing up.

They followed nearly identical paths in hockey as well, playing locally for all of the same youth teams, starting with the Bowie Bruins, the Washington Little Caps and then Team Maryland (the only competitive AAA team, which has to bring together players from all over the state) and the Montgomery Blue Devils in Rockville, a 50-minute drive from home.

Matthew coached them each for a few years as well.

Eventually, though, they outgrew hockey in Maryland and had to go play elsewhere.

That brought Blake to the Philadelphia Jr.

Flyers and then Seacoast and Mount St.

Charles.

Where were from, hockeys definitely not considered a top competitive sport at all, Bryce said.

It looked weird for us to even be taking hockey seriously because we kind of had the height and the power for basketball or football.

Advertisement People say Bryce and Blake are similar but Bryce insists theyre different.

He described his little brother as a goofy, lighthearted, thoughtful kid who knows how to not take life too seriously all the time.

Simpson, Sullivan and Boyd all described him similarly.

Boyd called him a tremendous person who has been a pleasure to work with.

Sullivan talks about Blake as the person youd want to sit next to at a big dinner table.

Simpson said good game or bad game, Blakes addition to the room immediately brightened it this year because of his infectious positive attitude.

You ask anybody about Blake around the hockey world and I dont think anybody is ever going to say a bad thing about him, Bryce said.

He saw that firsthand when he returned to London for the OHL Championship and his former teammates, his former coach Dale Hunter and his former billet (who now billets Blake), Lori Vanosch, all raved about Blake.

Everybody had nothing but just the best to say about Blake and that made me pretty proud.

And its very obvious.

That just goes to show the type of person that he is, Bryce said.

It was pretty cool to hear everybody talk him like they did.

On the ice, Bryce was always the big, strong defenseman and Blake was always the lanky, lean winger.

Until last summer, when Blake would join Bryce and his friends for their summer skates in Maryland, he was always kind of the little runt.

After his season in Lincoln, that changed.

He was always good but he was so little and so young.

We could push him around out there, said Bryce, who is now signed with the Hurricanes and played his rookie season of pro hockey in the ECHL last year.

This past summer was the first time where he really kind of came into his own and I remember we were skating in the summer and I was like Holy cow, he has actually gotten really good.

I was just really impressed.

He was just so fast and hed gotten so big and skilled.

I was like Wow, hes definitely got something going now.

He looks awesome and Im really proud of the steps he has taken.

Advertisement One of the other players in those skates, coincidentally, has always been Stephen Halliday, another Senators prospect.

Halliday is one of Bryces best friends.

Bryce has old videos of him, Blake and Halliday roughhousing when they were little kids on his phone.

We go a long way back, Bryce said.

(Hallidays) a great connection for Blake in Ottawa.

These days, Blake is up to 195 pounds and over 6-foot-4.

But he still looks wiry.

He has come significantly far and we have a ways to go still Id say, Sullivan said.

I think were at the tip of the iceberg.

Im 5-6 and Blake is 6-4 and I weigh more than Blake right now.

Like weve got some hockey and physical development to do here.

Simpson believes the most important component for Blake is now the off-ice component more than the hockey one.

With Bryce, hes physically thicker.

With Blake, once he gets there, hes going to be a big load to handle for other teams defensive setups because you just cant find players that can skate the way he can at his size.

Once he puts on the strength, the power to his game is going to be impressive to watch, Simpson said.

Boyd believes Blakes going to grow into a big man.

With the hands and the ability that he has with the puck, in my mind to be a power forward is more than just having strength and the ability to skate, that power forward has to be able to score in many different ways and I think hes got that potential, Boyd said.

(And) hes pretty good at self evaluation and hes a well-rounded, character kid.

Hes got a lot of good things going for him for sure.

And hes a very athletic kid, too, and it shows in his hand-eye coordination and his ability to skate at that size.

Sullivan thinks hes just going to keep taking steps.

When hes finished taking them, he thinks Blakes going to be a middle-six power forward.

Advertisement Sullivans constantly telling him, Make people stop you, go to the rack, take it to the rack, and Blake has really embraced that.

Hes going to fill out a little bit more and hes happy with the bumping and grinding.

But the way he skates up and down the rink and his takeoff ability, its very hard to stop him when hes at his best, Sullivan said.

He makes it difficult for other teams to defend him and I do think he can play in the guts of the rink pretty well and hes not afraid at all, and that skating and that stride is something you cant teach, and his puck protection is continuing to get better.

His ability to go backhand-forehand as opposed to forehand-backhand, which is something the top guys do well, Blake does it better than anybody and that can get people tangled up a little bit.

Ottawa will take that kind of player gladly from a fourth-round pick.

Were hoping good things, selfishly for us as well as him, Boyd said, chuckling.

After another big step in London hopefully with a Memorial Cup to take with him toward his next step Blake now believes hes ready to become that, too.

Im really just more confident in myself and knowing what Im capable of, Blake said.

Ive learned that I can do whatevers needed and step into any role.

(Top photo: Morgan Roobroeck / OHL Images).

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