Montreal Canadiens' GM Kent Hughes struck before the trade freeze when he brought center Phillip Danault back to Montreal in a trade with the Los Angeles Kings.
It’s been an awful start to the season for Phillip Danault. Earlier this week, Research Ground’s Marco D’Amico reported that the centerman had asked for a trade, something his agent Allan Walsh did not appreciate. Still, a few days later, right before the trade freeze, the Montreal Canadiens announced that they had acquired the disgruntled Los Angeles Kings’ centerman.
While word around the league was that the Kings were aiming to get a roster player in return, they ultimately agreed to send Danault back to Montreal for a second-round pick, not the Habs’ own pick but the Columbus Blue Jackets’, the one they acquired when they agreed to take on Patrik Laine’s full $8.7 million cap hit for two seasons.
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Given the fact that the Jackets are currently 25th in the league with 34 points, it could be a reasonably high pick, but the Canadiens could afford it. They still have eight picks for the upcoming draft, including one in the first three rounds and two in the fourth round (thanks to the Jonathan Kovacevic trade).
In an ideal world, the Canadiens would have liked to acquire a second-line center this summer, but none were available on the market, and Danault is not one of them, not anymore. What he can still do, however, is win a lot of draws and make the Canadiens’ penalty kill much better. While everyone was on board with moving on from Joel Armia and Christian Dvorak, their departure significantly hurt the PK. Martin St-Louis hoped that Alex Newhook would pick up the slack, but that worked for 17 games before he fractured his ankle. He then had surgery that ruled him out for four months, which means until mid-March.
Since then, St-Louis has made do with Jake Evans, Josh Anderson, Oliver Kapanen and Joe Veleno. At times, Nick Suzuki has also pitched in, but overusing him is less than ideal. Danault has a 52.9% faceoff percentage and can definitely help on the penalty kill, but he cannot roll into town hoping to play as significant a role as he once did for the Canadiens.
In his last season with the Canadiens, he was forming the top line with Brendan Gallagher and Tomas Tatar. The latter is long gone, while the former currently skates on the fourth line, and in an ideal world, that’s where Danault needs to land. Looking at the big picture, a player like Kapanen, who has established good chemistry with Ivan Demidov and is working on it with Juraj Slafkovsky, needs to continue gaining valuable experience. Danault is 32 and is only under contract until the end of next season; he’s not going to be there long-term.
While the Canadiens haven’t announced it yet, the AHL transactions page shows that Jared Davidson was loaned back to the Laval Rocket yesterday, a move necessary to comply with the 23-man roster limit. It will be interesting to see who makes way for Danault in the lineup; Veleno and Owen Beck are the two likeliest candidates. Beck is pointless in seven games this season, while Veleno has three points in 29 games. Still, the veteran saw over 14 minutes of ice-time in the last match, while Beck only saw 11:24 of action. The 21-year-old could be best served by playing more minutes down in Laval than being on the Canadiens’ fourth line right now.
The Habs have yet to confirm when Danault will join the team, we’ll probably know more on Saturday morning when the Canadiens hold their morning skate at the Bell Centre at 10:30. It’s worth noting that the centerman hasn’t played since December, 10 because of a virus (that’s the official reason, but it could have been linked to the fact that a trade was in the works as well).
With the Kings not retaining any salary, it will be interesting to see how the Canadiens will navigate the numbers when their injured players come back, but that's a topic for another day.
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