Here’s every NHL team’s player to watch break out this year
By Paul Grant
Montreal Canadiens: Philip Danault
If Philip Danault can stay healthy and the failing Habs don’t trade him, the 25-year-old second-line center could be in store for a bust-out season. The reason? He’s got a new winger in speedy Max Domi, who was picked up in the splashy June trade that saw Alex Galchenyuk go to the desert.
Danault isn’t really overly big but he has had potential for quite some time now, as a first-round pick in 2011, to break loose, and having Domi and Artturi Lehkonen riding shotgun on his line could be just enough to do the trick. And, theoretically, the Habs don’t have much giving him a push from below, at least as long as Andrew Shaw is out, which means Matthew Peca and the repatriated Tomas Plekanac are the other two pivots auditioning for the gig.
Domi should be in store for a breakout season of his own because you just know the intense spotlight of Montreal isn’t going to faze him, seeing as he is of the same stock as his father, Tie, who didn’t let much of anything bother him while hard-headedly battling his way to eminence in high-pressure markets Toronto and New York (as well as Winnipeg). But it all comes down to Danault getting Domi the puck, which it says here will happen.