In the Habs Room: Kings’ Phil Danault Shows How It’s Done

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Phil Danault left Montreal because he didn’t feel the Canadiens appreciated the offensive side of his game.

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But Danault, who has been one of the best defensive forwards in the NHL in recent years, was on the ice for three power play goals and received an assist while helping the Angles Kings crush the Canadiens 5-2 the Saturday at the Staples Center.

The Canadiens could have used Danault on Sunday because they weren’t very good at the things he does well.

How to kill penalties.

The Canadiens, who excelled at PK on their way to the Stanley Cup final earlier this year, came into this game 28th in the NHL with a 69 percent success rate. Those numbers will drop after Montreal gave up three power play goals five times.

On winning the matches.

While Danault won 50 percent of his draws, the Canadiens as a team had 38 percent. Christian Dvorak, who is in the top 10 this season, led the team with 42 percent, winning eight of 19. Mathieu Perreault won six of 16, Nick Suzuki won seven of 20 and Cédric Paquette two of seven.

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He could have competed a little harder as well, but that wouldn’t have been difficult because there was no response from the Canadiens when the Kings pushed in the second period.

“When (the Kings) push the other way, I didn’t like the way we reacted,” coach Dominique Ducharme said. “We went on our heels, we had no execution, we had no setback except a little bit late in the third period.

“You can say you had a bad period, it can happen, but it’s still a 2-1 game and you go into third and you can turn things around. But in 10 seconds we received a penalty, ”said Ducharme. “It’s one of the worst ways to start a period, especially when you want to come back in a close game like this. He killed the match. “

As was the case for most of the night, that didn’t go well. Rasmus Kupari scored to give LA a 3-1 lead. The Kings would add two more goals before Ben Chiarot scored Montreal’s second goal with 2:20 left. The Kings finished the night with three power goals on five occasions.

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“It takes a certain level of competition, a certain level of work to win in this league every night and right now, we are not willing to give that consistently,” Chiarot said. “And our results show it.”

The loss, which followed a 4-0 victory Thursday in San Jose, produced 20 minutes of soul-searching. These are usually players-only meetings and while Ducharme was not present, general manager Marc Bergevin made a guest appearance and that’s never a good thing after a loss.

Ducharme seemed happy that the players took some initiative to address the team’s inconsistent play.

“They know what to do,” Ducharme said. “They know what makes us successful. The game in San José wasn’t perfect, but there was something to build on. … I can’t pick them up every other day. At some point, it has to come from them too. We are all in the same boat, we all want the same business, but they also have their part to do ”.

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