Could Sharks, Stars nudge their way into Larkin sweepstakes?
It was shaping up to be a relatively uneventful summer for the NHL, at least in terms of player movement. The upcoming class of unrestricted free agents is hardly exciting, and the trade market looked rather dry. That was until June 4th, when it was reported that star Detroit Red Wings center Dylan Larkin has requested a trade out of Detroit.
Larkin, who is set to turn 30 this offseason, is the type of bona fide number-one center that rarely becomes available. However, not every team will have a chance at acquiring him. Larkin has a full no-trade clause on his current contract, meaning any interested team would need his consent before trading for him. It’s already been reported that the Florida Panthers, Vegas Golden Knights, and Minnesota Wild have all gotten Larkin’s stamp of approval, but that doesn’t mean other teams couldn’t garner consideration.
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton were joined by The Fourth Period‘s David Pagnotta to discuss which teams could realistically be in the mix to acquire Larkin.
Carter Hutton: Obviously everyone has turned on their ears with this Larkin situation. He gives out his list of Minny, Vegas, and Florida, and they say that list is expanding. Where can his team list go from what he’s aired so far?
David Pagnotta: The way it’s been described to me is those are his preferred destinations, but I think he’s open to more than that. I’ve heard Dallas, I’ve heard San Jose. I’ve heard a couple other teams. The Minnesota connection is clear with Quinn Hughes. You’ve got Jack Eichel in Vegas, and you’ve got Matthew Tkachuk in Florida. The common denominator, outside of them being buddies, is also the fact that you’ve got that Team USA winning vibe still rolling, and they’ve tasted that. They want to keep that going now.
This is different than some of the other situations we’ve seen in the past because Larkin’s been here through a stretch. He’s been through the ups and a lot of downs in Detroit. It finally hit a wall where he was like “I can’t take this anymore, this is enough for me. I want to start winning and you’re not showing me signs that we’re going to turn the corner here. I want an opportunity to win.” This is different than the Quinn Hughes situation where he’s not going to sign and he wants a different environment because they’re going through a rebuild. This is him dealing with 10 years of nothing. He played five playoff games in his rookie year and that was it. A little bit of a different scenario, but it does put Detroit in a bit of a pickle, because if they wanted to start taking next steps in this rebuild that’s taken way too long, it may force them to continue to go in this direction because I don’t know if there’s a hockey trade that necessarily is there to be made. This is probably more futures driven, but we’ll see what (Steve) Yzerman can pull off.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Tuesday’s episode here…