Larkin Trade Request: MEGATHREAD (keep it here)

the diva dylan crowd makes me SICK. this is a guy who took a hometown DISCOUNT to stay and bled for a team that missed the playoffs every single year of his prime!!! you would ask out too. and dont you DARE bring raymonds name into a teardown hes UNTOUCHABLE

"Diva Dylan" has a nice ring to it though.

@GrumpyInGrosse said:

"Diva Dylan" has a nice ring to it

imagine being this old and this wrong at teh same time

I have rooted for this club since the Howe and Lindsay days, through the Dead Wings years that make this stretch look like a golden age. A captain's heart breaking is not new. Yzerman himself nearly went to Ottawa once, long ago, before this town fell in love with him. Sometimes the men who beg to leave are the ones who care the most that it isn't working. Be gentle with the kid.

I have been in that building for almost every home game for 14 years. I have watched this man play through a broken back and a broken everything for a team that gave him NOTHING to win with. I'm not mad at Dylan. I'm mad that we WASTED him. That's the part that actually hurts. 💔

Well said, Molly. That's the whole thing in one line: we wasted him. Wherever this lands, I hope the kid gets to play a game that matters in June. He earned that much from us. Now let's see what the next two weeks bring.

this thread aged from rage to grief in 24 hours, classic hockeytown

Quiet practical note while the dust settles: a Larkin move has zero retention room issues for us as the seller, but it complicates the Edvinsson RFA talk. If you bring back a center on a real contract in the return, the raise for Edvinsson (likely north of 8) gets tighter to fit. Just flagging that these dominoes touch.

five days of silence from the team. the leak well has run dry. this is the calm before they trade him for a conditional 3rd and a guy named Brayden.

UPDATE, per Detroit News (Khan) Yzerman has reportedly gone back to Larkin's camp to ask him to EXPAND the no-trade list beyond the original three. Reading between the lines: the FLA/MIN/VGK markets aren't producing the return Steve wants, so he's trying to widen the auction. This is the Duchene/O'Reilly playbook: refuse the discount, force more bidders.

@DetroitTom said:

Yzerman asked Larkin to expand the list

This is exactly right and it's the only smart play. O'Reilly went to Buffalo for a HAUL (Sobotka/Berglund/1st/2nd/etc) precisely because there were multiple bidders. Three teams = three lowball offers. Five or six teams = an actual market. Whether Larkin agrees to widen it is the entire ballgame.

Told you. Stevie does not blink. He's running the exact O'Reilly/Duchene template: make the player and the market come to YOUR number. This is what process looks like when it isn't comfortable.

@SuburbanWings said:

He's running the exact O'Reilly template

or the player says no, sits on his full NTC, and we get the worst of both worlds: a sulking captain AND no deal. but yeah. process.

asking him to expand the list after he asked out is kind of a power move by stevie ngl. like ok you want out? fine. open it up then. cant have it both ways

ok if the list opens up:

Wings get: UTA 1st (2026), Logan Cooley, prospect

Utah get: Larkin

NOW we talking

@tj_morris said:

Utah get Larkin, Wings get Cooley + 1st

Cooley is a 21-year-old ascending 1C on an ELC. No team on earth trades that for a 30-year-old at 8.7x5 with a partial NTC. You'd flip those two players in real life and Utah would still hang up. The framework you want is a late-1st + a good-not-great center prospect + a B-prospect. That's the realistic O'Reilly-adjacent ceiling.

man let me dream

"let me dream" is the official slogan of this franchise since 2016

i hate that this is dragging out so long. just RIP the bandaid off or KEEP HIM. this limbo is killing me. checking twitter every 4 minutes like a lunatic

poured a glass of wine for the friedman segment and there was no friedman segment. devastating. anyway whats everyone else doing while the captain's future hangs in the balance lol

nobodys saying it but if larkin goes our PP1 has no bumper and the umbrella falls apart. he was the only guy who actually moved in the high slot. wel be back to four guys standing still passing it along teh perimeter for 90 seconds

@andy_v said:

our PP1 has no bumper and the umbrella falls apart

This is an underrated point. McLellan's PP is already too static and over-reliant on the one-timer from the off-wing. Remove the one center who actually attacks the seam and you've got a special teams unit that finishes 28th. Larkin's exit is a systems problem, not just a points problem.

In my day the power play was: shoot the puck and go to the net. Now it's a PowerPoint presentation. No wonder nobody scores.

🚨 BIG ONE. Friedman on 32 Thoughts this morning: FLORIDA HAS MADE AN OFFER on Larkin. Rumored framework is the Panthers' #9 overall pick plus Anton Lundell. Caveat: that's the chatter, not confirmed terms, and Florida fitting 8.7 in is its own puzzle. But this is the first concrete shoe to drop. Discuss.

@DetroitTom said:

#9 overall + Anton Lundell

Okay THIS is a real offer and a good one. Lundell is a 24-year-old 200-foot center signed at 5.0 through 2030, and that's GREAT term and a usable 2C immediately. Plus a top-10 pick to replace the 1st we gave St. Louis. The cap actually works because Lundell coming back offsets a big chunk of Larkin's 8.7. If this is the real offer you have to think very hard about it.

#9 overall in THIS draft is a legitimate top-of-the-lineup swing, and pairing it with a cost-controlled 2C is the closest thing to the O'Reilly return anyone realistically floated in this thread. I'd want a B-prospect sweetener but the bones of that deal are exactly the "maximize return" outcome people demanded. Hard to do better given the 3-team list.

WAIT a top 10 pick AND a 2C?? thats actually a HAUL 🔥🔥 i take that and i dont even let stevie finish the sentence 😭 finally getting young scoring back in the door

lundell is good but hes another two way center lol. we just spent this whole thread saying we need scoring and the return is.... a defensive minded 2C. its a fine hockey trade but its very on brand for us

@chris_l said:

the return is a defensive minded 2C

Right, but the #9 pick is the scoring swing. You're not replacing Larkin's offense with Lundell, you're replacing it with whoever #9 becomes in 3 years, and using Lundell to not collapse down the middle in the meantime. As a process, swapping a 30-yo for a 24-yo + a top-10 lottery ticket is the textbook seller win. I'd do it.

i dont WANT to be convinced but youre all convincing me and i HATE it. a top 10 pick and a real center. ugh. if it has to happen at least its not a salary dump 😭😭