NHL Insider Darren Dreger shares further details on the explosive report from earlier on Thursday that Dylan Larkin is seeking a fresh start elsewhere after having played with the Red Wings since 2015.
Fans of the Detroit Red Wings were stunned on Thursday when an explosive report from NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman, indicating that captain Dylan Larkin requested a trade, was released.
Larkin is the longest-tenured current member of the club, and is the only player who remains from the roster of Detroit's most recent Stanley Cup appearance in 2016.
The Red Wings have failed to play beyond the regular season for 10 straight years, which is now the longest active drought in the NHL, and the longest in team history.
While speaking on TSN's OverDrive late Thursday afternoon, NHL Insider Darren Dreger offered further details behind what could be an eventual and highly public split between Larkin and the Red Wings.
“When you think of bombshells, that's as big a bombshell as we're probably going to get leading into the offseason post-Stanley Cup,” Dreger said. “I think there's a need for an explanation here — this has been in the works for a while, I think that's pretty obvious.
“You don't just wake up one morning as a top player and go, ‘Okay, I've been here 11 years, whatever it is, it hasn't worked out, time for a fresh start.’”
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Larkin, who hails from Waterford and attended the University of Michigan, and the Red Wings seemed destined for each other. They selected him with the 15th overall pick in the 2014 NHL Draft, and he burst onto the scene by scoring in his first NHL game in October 2015 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
After a solid rookie campaign, Larkin and the Red Wings made their most recent postseason appearance against the Tampa Bay Lightning, a series in which Tampa won quickly in five games.
From that point on, the Motor City has been bereft of Stanley Cup Playoff hockey and has endured several lean years on the ice, including the woeful 2019-20 campaign in which Detroit finished with the fewest points of any NHL team since the expansion Atlanta Thrashers two decades prior.
Throughout this entire time, Larkin, who was named the 37th captain in team history in 2021, has been the face of the franchise and has largely borne the brunt of difficult questions from the media as the setbacks grew.
His disappointment following losses in recent years that have eliminated the team from playoff contention was extremely obvious, both in his body language and spoken words. Following Detroit’s loss in Game 80 of this season, which sealed their fate, Larkin admitted he was “down as could be.”
As Dreger put it, Larkin's reported trade request wasn't a knee-jerk reaction, but rather a process that feels as though it has been slowly building over the last few years.
“You think of Dylan Larkin, it feels like he was born and raised to play for the Detroit Red Wings, right?” Dreger continued. “I mean, that's where he's from. So for Dylan to get to the place where he's requested a trade, that tells you that there's been a lot of thought, there's layering to all of this.....I don't think it's as cut and dry as him wanting an opportunity to win, and he doesn't see that opportunity in Detroit.
“But there are multiple layers that go beyond that. How did he get to this point? Did management do enough to insulate him? To augment what they have? All of those things. And those are questions that I suppose Dylan is going to have to face, if and when a trade happens.
But the information is legit.”
Larkin, who ranks 10th all time in Red Wings total scoring, still has five years left on the deal with an $8.7M cap hit, and holds a full no-trade clause over the next two seasons; that turns into a 10-team list afterward.
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