Too many extremes here, the truth is Danault is not a typical number 1 center imo, he should slot as an injury replacement when required and that’s his limit. However, he’s much better than a 3rd line Center. He would be in the appropriate role as a 2nd line center.
The habs haven’t really had a true first line in awhile. For recent times they have mostly been a score/win by committee type of team. I don’t really have much problem with his usage because imo he’s clearly the best we got. If Suzuki turns out to be a number 1 and Danault can skit in the 2c spot I would be completely fine with that and don’t believe it prevents us from contending.
I think the teams biggest problem is the lack of an elite puck mover/quarterback on the PP. Weber gets his goals and provides offence in a different way, but he doesn’t control the pace, and isn’t the best puck mover or PP quarterback. We haven’t replaced Markov and it hurts us tremendously. It’s hard to find a comparable to him out there, but we need one.
We also need an elite, game breaking talent like Kovalev could be, someone who can take over a game and has the ability to create on his own. I don’t know what our shootout record has been, I think it’s mostly a crap shoot, but we don’t even have a true threat there imo. Our best forwards, Danault, Gallagher, Tatar to a lesser extent don’t have that raw skill imo. Drouin should be good and maybe he is. I haven’t looked his numbers up, but we’ve always been missing that game breaker.
