Why does Dylan Larkin think sitting out is the right move?
The saga between the Detroit Red Wings and their former captain and first line center Dylan Larkin took another turn this week.
After requesting a trade over the summer, Larkin initially opted to suit up for the Red Wings after recovering from a pre-season injury and play until his trade request could be accommodated. Larkin put up 6 points in 10 games as Detroit has lurked around the bottom of the Atlantic Division while remaining fairly competitive.
Now, Larkin is refusing to report to the team in a bid to apply further pressure to the front office to get a deal done. The team has responded by suspending the Waterford native without pay.
On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by Jeff Marek, the host of The Sheet, to discuss the thinking behind this decision from Larkin and his camp.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The Red Wings can only suspend him if Larkin decides to walk away, so why do Larkin and his camp feel like this is the right move?
Jeff Marek: It feels very much to me, and I want to frame this in one very specific way. Let’s all do a little experiment right now. Let’s all for one second think back to what we were doing in 2015, and what we’ve done since and how we got to where we are now on this day of October 30 where we’re having this conversation. You know what Dylan Larkin’s been doing since 2015 up until yesterday? Playing for the Detroit Red Wings… There’s a lot of ways to go at this one, and the one thing that I keep coming back to… It very much feels to me like Pat Brisson, Dylan Larkin’s camp, CAA believes that Detroit is not operating in good faith. Pat Brisson went out of his way to mention that Larkin showed up, he’s played, he’s done all the things that are expected of him from the Detroit Red Wings as they work through this process, but I very much get the sense that they don’t believe that their professionalism in all of this is being met by the Detroit Red Wings. Now, a lot of things in this situation, because we are all quick to jump on the player because at face value, hey, here’s a guy who’s got a contract. He’s got to honor that contract; he needs to show up. He needs to do what’s right by way of the contract. I’ll listen to that. But this one isn’t something that just happened over the last couple of months. This is something that’s been brewing for a long time.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…
