Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

24

Phillip Danault

Los Angeles Kings Center

A 58.1 per cent chance share — the 98th percentile — and 8 goals from 123 shots.

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
2024-25LAK8083543+20261031236.517:40
2025-26 so far
Career711125269394+823231011912659.917:13

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 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

8 goals and 35 assists in 80 games for 43 points, plus-20, on 17:40 a night.

58.1 per cent at five-on-five, the 98th percentile — the best figure on the club. His on-ice goals were 50-28 against an expected 50.8-36.6, which is 9 goals of goaltending in his favour on top of a chance share that was already near the top of the league.

The Finesse Game

The offence is entirely a byproduct of the defence. 123 shots and 8 goals at 6.5 per cent, with 47 per cent of the attempts from inside 20 feet — the locations are right and the finishing has never been there.

35 assists is the useful half and it comes from winning pucks back in the neutral zone and moving them immediately. He is one of the better defensive centres in the league and the reason his wingers score.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 200, and he plays a hard, relentless checking game. He wins the wall, blocks shots, and takes the defensive-zone draws when Kopitar is off.

26 penalty minutes over 80 games is disciplined. The durability is excellent — four consecutive seasons above 78 games.

The Intangibles

A sixth-round pick, two organisations, and a career of being the most valuable player nobody wants to pay for.

At 32 the projection is unchanged: 40 points, elite defensive work, and a chance share that most 90-point forwards would take. The contract has been criticised for four years and the numbers have never supported the criticism.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,109 minutes

Expected goals
58.1%
98th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
56.7%
95th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 50 for, 28 against. Expected: 50.8 and 36.6.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
84th
Numbers
98th

The two rank him within 14 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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 79 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

2024-25 · 1109 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, 2024-25

The club
LAK took 54.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 58.1% — 4.1 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 1,109 minutes at five-on-five — 76th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Trevor Moore59.5%56.0%45.4%
Kevin Fiala59.4%57.0%56.5%
Warren Foegele57.1%58.7%56.4%

59.5% together, 56.0% for him apart and 45.4% for Moore apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

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

179 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 8 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 47% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 17% from beyond forty.