While the captain's preferred destinations offer Stanley Cup potential, a lack of draft capital and elite prospects creates a complex trade puzzle for Steve Yzerman.
It made headlines across the hockey world Monday morning when Detroit Free Press journalist Helene St. James reported that Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin had submitted a list of three preferred trade destinations to the organization.
The three teams, the Florida Panthers, Minnesota Wild and Vegas Golden Knights, spread quickly around the league and set off a frenzy of speculation about where the 29-year-old center could be headed.
The common threads between the three destinations are they are viewed as legitimate Stanley Cup contenders, with Vegas currently in the Finals, and all three rosters include members of the Team USA gold medal winning squad that Larkin is already familiar with.
On the surface, the list makes sense but when looking deeper, a significant problem begins to emerge, one that Red Wings fans were quick to point out on social media. The three teams Larkin has identified are among the most asset-barren in the entire league.
Unless each of these teams is willing to part with current NHL roster players, the cupboards are largely bare when it comes to the kind of draft capital and prospect depth that would typically be required to pry away a franchise's most valuable asset of the last decade.
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Florida owns the ninth overall pick in the upcoming draft, but that is the Panthers' only first-round pick over the next three seasons, and according to The Athletic's Scott Wheeler, Florida currently possesses the worst farm system in the NHL.
Minnesota and Vegas don't even have their first-round picks in the upcoming draft, and Wheeler ranks the Wild's prospect pipeline 23rd in the league and Vegas' 25th. As a group, these three teams have next to nothing to offer in the way of future assets.
That reality makes any potential deal an incredibly complicated puzzle to solve, particularly when the player in question is Larkin. Coming off a career-best 34 goals and 33 assists for 67 points in 74 games, Larkin is in the prime of his career and coming off his fifth consecutive season producing at least 65 points.
He leads Detroit in even-strength ice time and plays meaningful minutes on both the power play and penalty kill. He is a true number one center, and Steve Yzerman will not move him cheaply.
So what could each team realistically offer?
Florida's most compelling package would likely center around 24-year-old Anton Lundell, 27-year-old Eetu Luostarinen and restricted free agent Mackie Samoskevich, who is just 23, with picks attached to sweeten the deal. It is an interesting collection of pieces but may still fall short of what Yzerman would demand.
Minnesota's most appealing offer would revolve around Brock Faber and Danila Yurov, potentially with additional picks included. Getting a marquee asset back like Faber would certainly be tempting for Detroit, and that package may be the most intriguing of the three on paper.
Vegas presents the most complicated scenario of all. Any competitive offer from the Golden Knights would likely need to include the likes of Pavel Dorofeyev and Brett Howden alongside a more significant piece such as pending free agent Rasmus Andersson, Shea Theodore or Noah Hanifin, plus draft picks. Asking a Stanley Cup finalist to dismantle its roster depth for one player, even one as good as Larkin, seems far-fetched.
All three teams would have to significantly gut their rosters to make a deal work, and none of them have the prospect pipelines or draft capital to fill the gaps left behind. After looking closely at Larkin's preferred list, the most likely outcome may be the one nobody expected when this story broke in that Larkin could very well be staying in Detroit.
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