Stu Cowan thinks Phillip Danault is playing his final season with the Canadiens, and he said it without softening any of it.
RinkyReport carried the comments Thursday night from The Sick Podcast, and the post has pulled 643 views so far.
The read was blunt. This is his last year in Montreal, the age and everything else means his game is not going to improve, and that is just the reality.
Nobody enjoys hearing that about a player who does the dirty work. The regular season numbers do not fight back much either.
Seventeen points across 75 games on a $5.5 million cap hit. That is a fourth line output attached to a third line price.
Then the playoffs happened. Ten points in 19 games with a plus-3 rating, while bigger names on that roster went underwater.
Cowan did not pretend otherwise. He said what the centre did in the postseason for that team was so important.
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The Canadiens' Phillip Danault decision could be coming sooner than expected
That was the reference point in the argument. Once a player hits a certain age in that market, the decline stops being a debate.
So Cowan asked the obvious follow up. Is this somebody the Canadiens try to move at the deadline?
His answer was the colder half. He does not think the club is particularly worried about losing him for nothing at the end of the year.
There is a reason for that calm. Jake Evans put up the exact same 10 points across those 19 playoff dates and finished at plus-11.
Alex Newhook matched the total as well, with seven goals and two of them winning games. Montreal has that role covered three times over.
Oliver Kapanen is the cheapest version of it. Twenty two goals in all 82 games at 23 years old on $925,000.
Kirby Dach is the other name in that queue. Fifteen points in 37 games and a fit that Elliotte Friedman has already questioned out loud.
Above all of it sits Nick Suzuki and his 101 point season. Nobody is losing sleep about the middle of that lineup.
The club went 48-24-10 and finished sixth overall. That is not a team that has to keep anybody out of sentiment.
So does a 33 year old who delivers in May actually get moved in March?
Writing him off in September is like judging a furnace in July. You find out what it is worth when the temperature drops.
Two games against Toronto on Saturday start the answer. The version of him that showed up last spring is the one that decides how this ends.
Should the Canadiens trade Phillip Danault at the deadline rather than lose him for nothing?
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