This is not how things work in real life.
Danault is playing over his head right now, hes playing 19 minutes a night, as much as most 1C out there, he's nowhere near as good as the money he will want, and to be fair, he's right to ask for that money.
He's not playing over his head, he's just improving little by little every year and had now reach his full potential, or improve a little bit again at age of 27 or 28.
Not adressing to you necessarly, but looks like some posters here have locked Danault into a category of bad center who is almost useless because he doesn't score 35 g and have 70 pts. No he's not Crosby, he's maybe a newer version of Carbonneau, or a lower version of Patrice Bergeron, whatever ...
This season coming, I don't see Kotka take his spot on top 6 forwards. The only one I see pushing Danault of top 6 is Poehling. Actually I see Poehling much stronger on his skates (than Kotka), age maturity have something to do with it, he's the wild card of next training camp. Kotka will be first center in 3 years, not before, a lot of people here don't take age maturity and see Kotka like if he's 24 this year. Wait 3 years with Kotka #1 center.
Domi isn't the perfect #1 center either, he does a surprising good job dho, I see we have to wait a bit with centers and Danault (and Domi) will fill some major centering role until Kotka and Poeh are fully ready.