Thats not what you wrote.
Theres no arguing, hes at best top 10.
Defensively he's among the best in the league. Where he ranks doesn't really matter. His offensive though is overrated by many because of the TOI he got.
Yeah 50 points for a 2nd line center his fine. As long as he's playing 2nd line minutes. But Danault did his 50 points while playing borderline first line minutes.
This means that with 2nd line minutes (like he's getting this year) his production is more in the 40 points which is simply not enough. With 3rd line minutes his production would more than probably fall in the 35-40 points range (which would be very good).
Danault's production over the years :
2016-2017
40 points in 82 games while playing 15 minutes (high 3rd line TOI). In a normal season with small injury/flu it would be in the 35-40 range.
2017-2018
25 points in 52 games (39 points over 82 games) while playing 16:35 (low 2nd line TOI). He was injured we will give him a pass.
2018-2019
53 points in 81 games while playing 17:47 (high 2nd line TOI - first line duty shared with Domi). Borderline 2nd line production but considering the TOI is very close to first line it's certainly not great production. If he could do that every year while playing couple of seconds less behind a real 1st line (not sharing duty) then yeah but as it is no.
2019-2020
47 points in 71 games (54 points over 82 games) while playing 18:51 (first line TOI). Definitely not enough considering the TOI don't care about the excuses like "he plays on PK etc" it simply was not enough.
2020-2021
24 points in 51 games (39 points over 82 games) while playing 17:09 (low 2nd line TOI). That's definitely not enough not even close to be considering the TOI.
IMO we need to move on from Danault. If he accept 3rd line salary then yeah keep him. But if he wants to be paid like a 2nd line center then just let him go and bet on JK developing. JK will be 21 next year he's not a baby anymore.