Why would COL give up Graves + Beaucage + 1st for a guy who will be a UFA in a year?

Made that trade with a signing of an extension in mind. That package for Danault + a $5M x 5 extension for example

even with an extension that seems like a pretty steep price, especially for a team with 2 established Cs already. You would probably get a better return from a team looking for a top 6C (WPG, MIN, CGY, etc)

This makes sense tbh. I just used COL as I've seen a few threads with them and Danault. The principle is the same, Danault to a team for a 2021 1st +++ to offset the one we lose in the Barzal offersheet.

considering Pageau went for a conditional 1st, a 2nd, and a conditional 3rd.....the values that montreal is putting on Danault compared to Pageau are pretty outrageous

Honestly its a good time to be selling a C with how shallow the UFA C depth is this year (Koivu, Soderberg, Thornton, Haula - wow now that I look this up its even worse than I thought), I just dont think COL is a good fit

Exactly, he becomes an overpaid 3rd liner, better off sticking with Jost and at worst they have Bowers in their system.

Ive seen a lot of overvalued Danault trades on here and in general it seems like some MTL AGMs tend to overvalue their players but to be fair there are slim pickings for Cs right now so that could drive the price up if a team gets desperate

Again Danault is better than Pageau. At least we are comparing centers now though. Pageau is a good center no denying that but look over the following season review taken from the habs website and hopefully you will understand why we Habs fans want more for Danault.

https://www.nhl.com/canadiens/news/season-recap-phillip-danault/c-318954272

and Compher too, Avs C depth is just fine

Danult is good but hes not 1st, Top 4 Dman and a good prospect good.

I think we can all agree that the Colorado trade didn't make sense, but I could see another team like Winnipeg or Florida paying a similar price given their desperation for C