Danault is great if he's your #3.
The higher he gets on the depth chart, the shittier your team probably is. He was the #1 center on a team that finished 24th overall and that seems to be just about right.
I believe he'll start off as our #2, with Suzuki the #1 and KK the #3, which is fine with me. But I think there's a good chance that by the end of the year, assuming KK & Suzuki keep improving, Danault will be our #3.
While I firmly believe Danault's a better player, I don't think there's a world of difference between him & Lars Eller. Danault has better numbers than Eller, sure, but is it because he's really a better point producer or because of circumstances, he's gotten better opportunities with scoring wingers than Eller has? I think it's a mix of both, to be honest.
I am not interested in paying Danault $5M / season. $4.25M for 6 years, though? I can live with that.
The problem with signing Danault is, we're gonna have to go cheap in a lot of positions. We only have 6 forwards signed past this season (7 if Danault's back), with Kotkaniemi, Lehkonen, Armia, Tatar needing new contracts. Armia and Tatar are as good as gone, and while Lehkonen is an RFA, he could be gone too if his monetary demands are too high. Kotkaniemi's going to be back, for sure.
It always goes back to drafting. If we were even moderately decent in drafting, I wouldn't be so worried. We don't have a single prospect at any level that can replace Armia as a big body checker that can chip in goals from time to time, same with Lehkonen. Caufield might be able to replace Tatar, but I'm not sure he'll be able to right away. Poehling could possibly replace Danault if/when he leaves, but that's TBD. Ylonen is an unknown, I don't think he has much of a shot at making the team until 2021-2022 at the very earliest.
Too many unknowns for our forwards coming up.