If Danault isnt happy playing a reduced role in Montreal, why is happy and re-signing doing it in Colorado?

Donskoi and Zadorov to Buffalo for 2021 2nd and 3rd

Zadorov could get that on his own sans Donskoi. We need to keep one of Zadorov/Graves though.

Because in Colorado he'd be playing on a top contender that plays offensive hockey. By extending him immediately he wouldn't have to worry about putting up points in a contract year either.

He'd also get competent linemates to play with instead of the likes of Byron/Weal/etc.

That effectively blocks Newhook. Sure it’d be nice to run Dannault as the 3C but the Avs I believe are very eager to get Newhook and Byram into the NHL, and Newhook is a C they shouldn’t mess around playing him on the wing, BC tried it and the results were meh, they moved him back to C and they were wow.

So let me get this straight! Danault who is arguably one of the top 10 2 way centers in the league is only worth a Grave + Beaucage + 1st after playing in the NHL for 7 years and is able to shut down the top players in the league on a nightly basis. Where as a guy who has never even played an NHL game is somehow worth more! Rediculous that Avs fans seem to think Byram is worth more than Drouin + Struble + Poehling + 2020 1st round pick (MTL) + 2021 2nd round pick (MTL) + 2021 3rd round pick (MTL). That is like saying Norlinder is worth Burakovski + Timmins + Beaucage + 1st + 2nd + 3rd.

So if a guy like Byram who has yet to play in the NHL is worth that much I guess Suzuki is worth McKinnon + Rantanen + Girard + Timmins + 2020 1st + 2021 1st + 2022 1st!

Danault has played with Tatar and Gallagher for the past few years. If Montreal is looking to upgrade their wingers, he may continue playing with Tatar and/or Gallagher. Although I agree, if he wants a Cup right now, I could see him signing a 2-3 year extension.

I disagree, I don't think it blocks Newhook. He can start on the wing for 1 season and then take over Kadri's spot at C in 2022.

Newhook is obviously going to be a C long-term, but I think we can afford to have him on the wing for a year. We need to be going for a cup.

I doubt he signs for only 2-3 years. Players always tend to look for long-term security if they can get it.

Montreal split up Tatar-Gallaher and Danault in the playoffs and that might be a sign of things to come.

If we acquired Danault I think we could recrete that Tatar-Danault-Gallagher line somewhat with a line of Landeskog-Danault-Kaut... Landeskog is the physical guy (Gallagher), and Kaut would be the more cerebral finisher, like Tatar.

Did you see him play wing at BC? So the plan is to not play him at C then drop him in at 2C? I know you’re being creative and I like it, but if you do that you might as well trade Newhook and roll What you have above. But answer me this, if the Avs has Dannault against Dallas do you think the results would have been different?

It's not ideal to have Newhook on the wing. Maybe the solution is to roll with Mackinnon-Kadri-Danault down the middle in 20-21, and then trade Kadri in 2021 with 1 year to UFA and roll with Mackinnon-Danault-Newhook.

If we had Danault against Dallas our 3rd line would have showed up a lot more and been a force. We would have been better on key faceoffs, and also on the PK. I'd be inclined to think that we would have been better off against Dallas with him. But obviously you can't legislate for goalie meltdowns so perhaps it would have made no difference.

I disagree wholeheartedly. He wouldn’t have improved the PK because it is fundamentally flawed at the plan phase, how would he have prevented all the cross and diagonal passes that lead to back door goals? The 3rd line accounted for 2 of the 4 goals scored in game 7. The bottom 6 wasn’t the problem in the series you know that

The 3rd line was relegated to being our 4th line for most of this series. With a better 3rd line we would have dominated them even more.

But yeah maybe it wouldn't have made a huge difference to the PK or goaltending obviously.

That said, Danault on this team going forwards elevates us to Tampa's level imo.

We are at Tampa’s level minus goal tending and PK. The Avs are a dominant 5v5 team. If they had even below average PK and goal tending they destroy Dallas. I mean c’mon in the 4 loses the highest save percentage was .854 and they had a chance to win 3 of those games. I think at on pt the PK was not exaggerating like 60% for the series, that is 100% on coaching.

With a healthy lineup Tampa have Stamkos - Point - Cirelli - Gourde down the middle.

We'd need a competent 3C to get to that level.

Yeah Stamkos doesn’t play center anymore, or should I say very rarely. Love him hate him, Compher is every bit the Gourde is minus his ridiculous contract. And I’ve said it and I’ll stand by it, if you are investing heavy capital in your bottom 6 you are doing it wrong.