As player empowerment reshapes the NHL, Anaheim must prioritize aggressive winning over long-term rebuilding to lure elite talent seeking immediate championship contention and organizational commitment to excellence.
The landscape of the NHL is changing now more than ever. The salary cap ceiling is increasing year after year, and star players are more willing to “upset the apple cart,” leveraging their contractual positions to influence their way to more preferred destinations.
Every year, general managers ask players with no-trade clauses to waive them as the team intends to shift directions in terms of roster construction for the franchise’s future. In recent years, however, players have taken some of that power back, refusing to waive, communicating a willingness to waive for only a select few teams, expressing desires to sign extensions only with certain teams when their contracts are close to expiring, etc.
Beginning with Jack Eichel’s request to be traded to a team willing to allow him to undergo his desired surgery in 2021, to Matthew Tkachuk’s unwillingness to re-sign in Calgary as an RFA, to Quinn Hughes’ reluctance to commit long-term to the Vancouver Canucks, star players are navigating their way to teams and situations they feel are better for their careers.
The latest such request came on Thursday, when Detroit Red Wings captain and top center Dylan Larkin requested a trade. What makes Larkin’s request unique is the term remaining on his current contract (five years) and his no-trade clause attached to said contract.
Larkin has control over where he ends up, and Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press reported he submitted an initial list of three teams to which he’d be willing to accept a trade. The teams on Larkin’s list were (in alphabetical order) the Florida Panthers, Minnesota Wild, and Vegas Golden Knights.
The saga between Larkin and the Red Wings will play out in due time, but what stands out about the teams in Larkin’s initial list is their commitment to winning and winning now. Florida and Vegas represent the last three teams to hoist the Stanley Cup, with Vegas two games from extending that number to four. Minnesota has been one of the NHL’s most aggressive teams in the last year, extending star forward Kirill Kaprizov to a record contract and acquiring Quinn Hughes mid-season.
The NHL seems to be in the early stages of a player empowerment movement. While secondary or tertiary benefits different organizations have to offer, like market, weather, state income tax situations, etc., can tip scales one way or another, the driving force behind desired destinations is one aspect above all else: winning.
Players want to win. They want to win as immediately as possible, and they want to win as much as possible. Organizations like the Wild, Panthers, Golden Knights, Colorado Avalanche, and Tampa Bay Lightning have demonstrated a willingness to prioritize present success over future success and to win at all costs, rendering them destinations that players seem to be orchestrating moves to.
Of course, teams must make the right moves to build their rosters and become desirable organizations. However, in today’s landscape, that’s only part (a big part) of the equation.
Traditionally reserved for unrestricted free agency, now more than ever, teams have to sell themselves to players. They have to sell players on a vision they feel will soon lead to hoisting Stanley Cups, and they have to do it, not by pitching them in a boardroom, but by their actions.
So now the question for teams like the Anaheim Ducks moving forward will be: how do we get to the point where we can sell this organization as a destination to which star players orchestrate moves to win championships?
Superfluously, the Ducks can sell players on things like weather, lifestyle, and a favorable media environment, but now they may be entering the discussion of places where players can win.
In 2025-26, after an excruciatingly long rebuild, the Ducks qualified for the playoffs for the first time in eight years and advanced to the second round for the first time in nine. In May 2025, Ducks’ general manager Pat Verbeek hired the second-winningest coach in NHL history, Joel Quenneville. At the trade deadline, he parted with a first and third-round pick to acquire the expiring contract of veteran defenseman John Carlson, with the goal of offering his roster the best chance at success in the playoffs.
Anaheim lost in the second round, but defeated the back-to-back Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers in the first round. Though Carlson may not re-sign in Anaheim, and they traded a first-round pick for the first time since 2017, the Ducks sent a message to the NHL and to star players potentially on the move that they are willing to make bold moves in order to win.
Selling players on location, lifestyle, and even promising young cores like the Ducks have with Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, Beckett Senencke, Jackson Lacombe, etc., is easy. The more difficult part of the equation is selling a commitment to winning. The Ducks may still have a gap to fill between themselves and the Panthers, Knights, and Avalanche of the league, and make their way onto “teams I’ll accept a trade to” lists, but it would appear Anaheim is well on their way to entering such conversations.