Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

24

Phillip Danault

Los Angeles Kings Center

A shutdown centre with a 95th-percentile chance share and one shorthanded goal in 631 games.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2014-15CHI20000000020.09:30
2015-16CHI/MTL514610-514001725.612:46
2016-17MTL82132740+5350031339.815:35
2017-18MTL5281725034012948.516:35
2018-19MTL81124153+17390011329.117:47
2019-20MTL71133447+18321011319.918:51
2020-21MTL5351924+924000736.916:52
2021-22LAK79272451+143820519413.918:08
2022-23LAK82183654-86330115211.818:20
2023-24LAK78173047+121830215910.718:01
2024-25 so far
Career631117234351+622979116114210.317:09

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 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

78 games, 17 goals and 30 assists for 47 points, 3 on the power play, 18 penalty minutes, 18:01 a night and plus-12. He took 57.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,096 minutes, the 95th percentile, and his ice went 51-38 against an expectation of 53.04-39.31.

Level at both ends: a line that got precisely what its play deserved. The 95th percentile on the assignment he takes is worth more than the point total.

The Finesse Game

159 shots at a median of 25 feet with 43 per cent from inside 20, converted at 10.7 per cent against a career 10.3.

234 career assists in 631 games. The offence is a by-product and forty-seven points is about the ceiling. What he does with the puck is keep it, and the cycle he runs below the goal line is the reason his line spends so little time defending.

The Physical Game

He is 6-1 and 200 and wins the wall against anybody.

18 penalty minutes in 78 games at eighteen minutes a night against other clubs’ best lines is a remarkable rate. He takes the defensive-zone draw that starts the shift and he defends by taking the puck rather than the man.

The Intangibles

Twenty-sixth overall in 2011 out of Victoriaville, ten seasons, and 351 points in 631 games. He kills penalties and has 1 career shorthanded goal in 631 games, which is a strange line for a man who has done nothing else for a decade.

He is 31 and has been the same player for eight years. On a club whose penalty kill is 22nd, the fact that its best defensive centre has one career shorthanded goal is worth sitting with.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,096 minutes

Expected goals
57.4%
95th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
55.9%
92nd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 51 for, 38 against. Expected: 53.0 and 39.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
84th
Numbers
95th

The two rank him within 11 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 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.

Usual linemates

2023-24 · 1096 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, 2023-24

The club
LAK took 54.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 57.4% — 3.3 above the club he did it on.
The role
First line, 1,096 minutes at five-on-five — 71st percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Trevor Moore58.0%52.9%57.4%
Kevin Fiala58.4%56.0%58.6%
Drew Doughty54.6%59.4%55.2%

58.0% together, 52.9% for him apart and 57.4% for Moore apart. He was worse away from Moore, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Moore 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

218 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 17 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 43% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 21% from beyond forty.