In one of her first drills as a member of PWHL Montreal, Mikyla Grant-Mentis saw the puck going the other way. She quickly had to go from offence from defence, chasing down the opposing attacker the length of the ice. At the last moment, she got her stick on the puck, stopping a shot. The players tapped their sticks with approval. Assistant coach Eric Houde, in charge of the team’s defence, made sure to give her a tap on the pads.
“You definitely get the appreciation for back checking the entire width of the ice,” said Grant-Mentis. “Everyone’s watching at all points, and they’re looking for the success of all players.”
Grant-Mentis is known as a scorer, that’s what she has been throughout her hockey career, but she’s willing to do whatever it takes to claim a spot on the team.
“I’m going to do whatever I can to get into the lineup,” Grant-Mentis said. “So if it’s scoring, passing, PK, I’ll do whatever it is at this point.”
The final three words of that sentence can carry a lot of weight. Grant-Mentis went undrafted in the PWHL draft and was a training camp invite in Ottawa fighting for a roster spot. She ended up making the roster, playing in six PWHL games and earning three assists. Then, she was released on February 18 by Ottawa. Montreal picked her up for the reserve roster on Sunday.
“There were reasons Ottawa released her and there were reasons we were interested in her,” said Montreal general manager Danièle Sauvageau. “There are a lot of games left, she knows how to play hockey. I often say we’re all flowers but sometimes we’re not always in the right pot. Sometimes we can find ourselves in too much sun, too much shade, more water, less water. There are plenty of players, even if you look at the Montreal Canadiens, that you would have bet they wouldn’t make it who succeed night after night.”
There isn’t an indication of exactly what pot Montreal will put Grant-Mentis in, but there is a need for some of what Grant-Mentis brings in Montreal’s lineup. They showed interest in Grant-Mentis after the draft, and that interest didn’t go away once she was once again a free agent.
“[Montreal head coach Kori Cheverie] called me and everything she was saying about the team, the atmosphere here, and the structure that they have, I really fell for it,” Grant-Mentis said. “So I think it was the best decision for me. They pursued it pretty hard. So I was pretty excited.”
The reception from her new teammates, some of which were familiar faces from her past (women’s hockey is a small world), confirmed that she made the right choice.
“I feel like all the girls on the team are pretty excited about it,” Grant-Mentis said. “A lot of them texted me the day that the news came out so it was really nice. Getting that it was made me less nervous to come here. So it was a nice transition.”
She also has the added pressure of going to a new team in the middle of their season.
“It’s pretty exciting to learn new stuff, new drills and everything,” she said. “It’s exciting and a little nerve wracking because I honestly didn’t know what to expect. But it was pretty good. And I loved it.”
The 25-year-old has had a lot of professional success. In 2020-21, she was the NWHL’s MVP and leading scorer in their shortened six game season where she had nine points. She followed that up the next year with 30 points in 19 games, finishing second in league scoring behind only her now-teammate Kennedy Marchment. In 2022, she signed with the Buffalo Beauts and was at the time the highest-paid player in the league. In 51 career games, she had 29 goals and 34 assists for 63 points.
It hasn’t gone so smoothly recently.
“It’s definitely a unique [path] from many others, but it’s getting very similar to the NHL where like they don’t know where they’re going to be at the trade deadline. So you kind of just have to adapt to it, hope for the best and just keep pushing,” she said.
In order to play in a game, Grant-Mentis will need to sign a standard contract or a 10-day contract. This season, all three of Montreal’s reserve players have done exactly that. With seven games remaining, there’s a good chance she will get into games at some point.
For now, Grant-Mentis is practicing with the team and will be doing her best to claim a spot while dealing with the ups and downs of being in this situation.
“[It’s been] a roller coaster, and I’m just continuing on, it’s just going in circles. Hopefully, it’s a steady one for now and it’s just straight until the end of the season,” she said. “But I’m pretty adaptive so I just go with the flow.”
