TAMPA, Fla. — Phillip Danault got most of what he was yearning for in Boston, in the first game of his second stint with the Montreal Canadiens.
Danault didn’t get all of it, though. He didn’t get the goal he’d been chasing since Game 1 of the season with the Los Angeles Kings, nor did he register his sixth assist after producing just five through the first 30 games.
But what Danault got right before Christmas — on top of a win with his new teammates — was a renewed sense of purpose.
It was what the 32-year-old began to feel as soon as he was traded to the Canadiens for a 2026 second-round pick on Dec. 20, and it was what he needed most.
As Danault told reporters at TD Garden prior to the Canadiens’ 6-2 thumping of the Bruins on Tuesday, he couldn’t shake the feeling he had lost more than just his offensive touch in L.A.
“I didn’t find I had a purpose with the team,” Danault said. “It felt like there was nothing more I could bring to the team, and in those situations you feel powerless and less important. That’s how I was feeling there toward the end.”
It had to be the opposite of how Danault was feeling in his rebirth with the Canadiens.
Danault played 15:29 against the Bruins, with 4:25 of it on the penalty kill. The bulk of his 10:41 at even strength was spent against Boston’s top line of David Pastrnak, Elias Lindholm and Morgan Geekie, which he helped keep off the board at five-on-five, and he spent the majority of his 4:16 in the third period enabling the youngest team in the league to lock down a lead.
Danault was also counted on for key faceoffs in all three zones, even if he pulled back only five of 20, and he finished the game knowing he’ll only be counted on more in that department.
The Canadiens were already filling several needs by making the Victoriaville, Que., native’s acquisition. They needed a left-handed pivot to balance out a centreline that previously featured four righties, they needed experience, and they needed a smart, simple player to dull some of the late-game excitement they were prone to offering their opponents.
“I know I’ll be used that way,” said Danault. “I know the Canadiens score a lot of goals, but due to their inexperience, they have a tendency to struggle a bit when the games are tighter. So, that’s what I’m bringing.”
The Canadiens need it even more from Danault now, with Jake Evans out for up to five more weeks with the lower-body injury he suffered on Dec. 20.
Danault knows.
“Listen, it’s not good timing for Jakey,” he said before acknowledging Evans’ absence could accelerate the process of redeeming his own confidence.
Danault’s ice time is bound to increase, as will his importance, and that’s just what the doctor ordered for a player who was feeling irrelevant to the team he started the season with.
Danault was anything but irrelevant to the Kings through his first four years in their uniform. He was a crucial player for the Canadiens for the better part of six seasons before averaging 49 points while balancing heavy defensive responsibilities in his first four with L.A. As Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes mentioned upon re-acquiring the player and taking on the full weight of his $5.5-million cap hit through the end of next season, “He had eight points in six games in the playoffs last year in a role where his primary responsibility was to shut down Connor McDavid.”
Now Danault will continue to regularly face the league’s best players, but he’ll also get more opportunity to ignite his offensive game.
He believes the Canadiens’ system will help.
“System-wise, if you look at it, Los Angeles had the least goals in the league,” Danault said. “So, system-wise, that was more defensive.”
The Canadiens have more offence baked into their system, and Danault believes that’ll enable him to get back to being the 200-foot centre he had been before he lost his way with the Kings.
Returning to Montreal already has him feeling much better.
Sam Montembeault must make himself important to Canadiens again
He was the Canadiens’ starting goaltender for the better part of two seasons, but Montembeault will be watching 21-year-old Jacob Fowler take on the Tampa Bay Lightning come Sunday—and this was after he spent eight days in the leadup to Christmas on a conditioning stint with the Laval Rocket.
It was with them, behind a team missing several key players—some of them up with the Canadiens and some of them suspended—that Montembeault stopped 47 of 52 shots he faced over two games.
The .904 save percentage was a marked improvement over the .857 he posted on his way to a 5-6-1 record with the Canadiens this season.
On Saturday, Montembeault reunited with his teammates and put into perspective his struggle to redeem his confidence and make himself important to the team again.
“The world wasn’t ending,” the 29-year-old from Becancour, Que., said. “Just had to go down there and take the opportunity to play some games and get some fresh perspective from (Rocket goaltending coach) Marco (Marciano). He’s another pair of eyes and he was able to maybe see a few things that we weren’t seeing. We didn’t reinvent the wheel. Did a lot of tracking, lot of focus on my hands to keep them in front and make quality saves. It was good. Came back and had two really good practices in Brossard, worked hard, tried not to think about anything, and it was great to then take a break, recharge the battery and take my mind off hockey.”
Another practice will help Montembeault get his mind back to where it needs to be before he’s back in Montreal’s net.
That could be as soon as Tuesday, when the Canadiens take on Montembeault’s former team in Sunrise, Fla.
“We’ll take it day-by-day,” said coach Martin St. Louis. “I do feel the need to get (Montembeault) into a game soon.”
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Montembeault appeared in 62 of them last season, posting a 31-24-7 record and a .902 save percentage. He was just as steady in the 81 games he appeared in over the two seasons prior, behind a far inferior Canadiens team.
But Montembeault won’t get much opportunity to renew his sense of purpose with this version of the Canadiens if he doesn’t pick up his game dramatically.
The team could use Montembeault’s experience, especially with Fowler just five games into his NHL career and 24-year-old Jakub Dobes just 39 games into his.
But those two kids have won the majority of their starts and they will continue to be leaned on as the tandem of choice if Montembeault doesn’t rebound immediately.
“Will the break he took end up being just another part of him building himself back up? We don’t know,” said St. Louis. “We’ll see, but that was definitely the plan.”
