Former Canadian Phillip Danault returns to the Bell Center with the Kings

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Brendan Gallagher and Phillip Danault are no longer teammates, but they remain great friends.

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On Tuesday, Danault will play his first game at the Bell Center since leaving the Canadiens and signing a six-year, $ 33 million contract with the Los Angeles Kings during the offseason. (7 pm, TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).

The Kings were 5-5-1 heading into Monday night’s game in Toronto against the Maple Leafs and Danault was 1-4-5 and under-1 while winning 59.3 percent of their meetings. . The Canadiens are 3-10-0, while Gallagher has 2-3-5 totals.

No Canadiens player has missed Danault more than Gallagher since they were linemates, along with Tomas Tatar, for most of the past three seasons. It was one of the best five-on-five lines in the NHL. Tatar also left the Canadiens during the offseason, signing a two-year, $ 9 million deal with New Jersey as a free agent. In 10 games with the Devils, Tatar is 0-3-3.

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Tuesday’s game will be the second this season between the Canadiens and the Kings. The Kings won 5-2 on October 30 in Los Angeles. Danault received an assist in that game, while Gallagher was useless.

“Yeah, I talk to Phil,” Gallagher said after Monday’s practice at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard. “We spend a lot here together. Much of the success I was able to have and he is a good friend. So you’re happy to see him happy in Los Angeles in the first place. But they got the first one, so you don’t want to give him too many bragging rights, too much to talk about. You play with your friends even harder than you normally would because you want to have that bit of bragging rights. But in terms of what he brings to his group, we know he is an important player. So for the 60 minutes, 65 if necessary, you have to turn off that friendship and do whatever it takes to find a way to win a hockey game.

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“With (Danault) and Tuna, we spent a lot of time together,” added Gallagher. “My way of playing is not so much thinking, it is more reactionary. And when they know where others are going to be and are able to build that chemistry … it doesn’t happen overnight. It also took us a long time. You build it and you have those instincts where you just know where others are going to be. It just makes the game so much easier. “

Gallagher has rebounded with different linemates this season and in Monday’s practice he was on the right wing with Adam Brooks in the center and Josh Anderson on the left. Christian Dvorak and Jonathan Drouin missed practice and are listed as day to day.

Gallagher was asked if changing line partners had been frustrating for him.

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“Not frustration,” he said. “I think it has been a challenge, probably because it has been different. It’s been bouncing around a bit. We have had some injuries. I was playing with Suzy (Nick Suzuki) and Toff (Tyler Toffoli), we were going pretty well, things were going pretty well. It takes time to build those things. It looks like that will change the next game and you work with what you have. “

Suzuki was in the center between Mike Hoffman and Toffoli in Monday’s practice.

“To me, that’s not something that worries me that much,” Gallagher said of the line change. “Whoever you are with that day, you try to build that chemistry and it takes time, it takes some work. But hopefully at some point you can stick with some guys and be able to build that and continue to grow on that. But it is different, for sure.

“A different challenge as a player,” added Gallagher. But it is something that everyone goes through and it is a challenge that I look forward to. You have to find it at some point and it’s something I feel like I can do a better production job at. But in terms of where my game is at the moment, I feel pretty confident and I feel like it will come very soon. “

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