Phillip Danault

A defensive centre back where his career started, with the offence now almost entirely gone.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2014-15	CHI	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0.0	9:30
2015-16	CHI/MTL	51	4	6	10	-5	14	0	0	1	72	5.6	12:46
2016-17	MTL	82	13	27	40	+5	35	0	0	3	133	9.8	15:35
2017-18	MTL	52	8	17	25	0	34	0	1	2	94	8.5	16:35
2018-19	MTL	81	12	41	53	+17	39	0	0	1	132	9.1	17:47
2019-20	MTL	71	13	34	47	+18	32	1	0	1	131	9.9	18:51
2020-21	MTL	53	5	19	24	+9	24	0	0	0	73	6.9	16:52
2021-22	LAK	79	27	24	51	+14	38	2	0	5	194	13.9	18:08
2022-23	LAK	82	18	36	54	-8	63	3	0	1	152	11.8	18:20
2023-24	LAK	78	17	30	47	+12	18	3	0	2	159	10.7	18:01
2024-25	LAK	80	8	35	43	+20	26	1	0	3	123	6.5	17:40
2025-26	LAK/MTL	75	6	11	17	-3	26	0	1	1	91	6.6	15:34
2026-27 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	786	131	280	411	+79	349	10	2	20	1356	9.7	17:03

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

6 goals and 17 points in 75 games, minus-3, on 15 and a half minutes a night. He has scored 27 in a season; this was not close to that, and the decline has been steady rather than sudden.

The Finesse Game

Modest and getting more so. The hands work around the net at close range, the shot is not a threat, and he no longer creates anything for linemates. 91 shots across a full season describes a player who is not looking for the puck in the offensive zone.

The passing and the puck support remain sound. He rarely turns it over and rarely puts a teammate in a bad spot, which is what keeps a checking centre employed after the goals stop.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 200, and he plays a positionally physical game — on the right side of the puck, blocking shots, absorbing contact to make an exit. He is not a hitter.

He wins faceoffs and takes defensive-zone draws against the other team’s best, which is the job.

The Intangibles

He built a reputation here shutting down the best line in hockey through a playoff run, left for a long contract, and has come back to the same role at 33 with less to give.

Coaches still trust him completely, and on a team full of young forwards who need protecting from hard matchups that has real value. The honest read is that the value is defensive now, entirely, and the contract will look worse each year.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 952 minutes

Expected goals: 47%; 29th pct
Shot attempts: 50.3%; 61st pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 27 for, 32 against. Expected: 33.4 and 37.7.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted

Report

73rd

Numbers

29th

The report ranks him 44 points above where the numbers do. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 76 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 75 games

Top speed: 21.6 mph; 26th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.73 a game
Distance: 2.42 miles a game
Hardest shot: 88.8 mph; 76th pct

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

points in his last 10 games — 1 goals, 0 assists, 16 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 536 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2025-26

The club: MTL took 49.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.0% — 2.8 below the club he did it on.
The role: 952 minutes at five-on-five — 55th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Brendan Gallagher	50.8%	44.9%	49.7%
Josh Anderson	47.1%	47.0%	46.4%
Trevor Moore	52.3%	45.3%	54.5%

50.8% together, 44.9% for him apart and 49.7% for Gallagher apart. He was worse away from Gallagher, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Gallagher did.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

128 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 18 feet. 44% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 18% from beyond forty.