MONTREAL -- They call him “Skillsie,” like you call a bald guy “Curly” or a fat guy “Slim.”
“Is that irony? I don’t know if it’s the proper use of irony. The jumbo shrimp?” wondered Montreal Canadiens defenceman Hal Gill. “I’m not the skilled player. It is what it is. It’s a tough burden to bear, but I do other things well.

“There’s a lot of people out there in men’s leagues who probably have better hands than me, but that’s life.”

Yes, he does other things well.

Like lead the Canadiens’ penalty killing heading into Game 6 Monday might in the Eastern Conference quarterfinal against the Washington Capitals, the Habs having limited the best power play in the NHL’s regular season to just one goal in 24 chances. The Habs will probably have to maintain that level of success if they are going to dodge the elimination bullet again to tie the series and send it back to the American capital for Game 7 Wednesday night.

Gill, who has the wingspan of an Airbus and the footspeed of a Model-T, leads the Habs, along with partner Josh Gorges, in ice time while short-handed in this series.

They’ve managed to frustrate the Caps, who spent most of their 30-minute practice on Sunday in Arlington, Va., working on their power play before flying here.

Caps coach Bruce Boudreau tweaked his personnel a little, putting forward Eric Belanger - not normally a power-play guy for the Caps, though he played on the power play in Minnesota before being traded to the Caps at the deadline - in the rotation.

Belanger is going to play despite having eight teeth knocked out on Friday night by the high stick of Canadiens defenceman Marc-Andre Bergeron (Bergeron, a teammate in Minnesota at one point, called to apologize).

Can Boudreau find some answers for Monday night?

“It’s the art of war, I guess. You do something different here and they make adjustments and we make adjustments back. It’s a constant back and forth,” said Gill. “We’re playing Game 6 and it’s going to be a different story. We have to determine whether it’s going to be in our favour or their favour.

“Right now, we’re getting the commitment from guys. We’re getting in shot lanes, hustling on pucks, winning battles. Right now, we’re doing all those things right and goaltending is huge. It always is.”

Does he thinks they’re in the Caps’ kitchen and frustrated them?
“I hope so. That’s the idea of ‘PK,’ to be on them,” he said. “Yeah, every power play is a new opportunity for them or for us. It starts again. If we kill that penalty, then you get that frustration and you did your job. If they score, you feel it the other way. Every new penalty is a new battle.”

Gill got the nickname Skillsie when he was at Providence College and teammate Erik Sundquist called him that. It’s stuck ever since, though only his teammates and select others are allowed to call him that.

“I’m not a huge fan of a guy outside the rink calling me Skillsie,” he said, eyeing the media scrum. “You’re out of the circle of trust.”

Gill won the Stanley Cup last year with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and his value to a team is most evident out of the spotlight. Steady on the ice; a guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously off it with a nice self-deprecating humour.
Not that he can’t shift focus.

Asked about Gorges on Sunday, he said:

“You pull one layer back and you get deeper into him and learn a whole lot about him.”

And what have you found?

“I don’t want to go any deeper.”