The Flyers must fix themselves first.
As it turns out, the Philadelphia Flyers have virtually no chance of pulling off a Dylan Larkin trade with the Detroit Red Wings, and maybe that's the way things should be.
Larkin, 29, will turn 30 years old on July 30, and while he has scored 30 goals in each of the five seasons and six times in his career, isn't going to turn the Flyers around.
Not by himself, anyway.
After the Flyers made the playoffs this past season, it made sense to throw future assets at players like Larkin, Mat Barzal, and John Carlson--particularly all three--if they were going to keep this up.
But, if the Flyers paid up for Larkin and just Larkin, it's a lateral move on the player's part when we consider team talent and future assets.
According to Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press, Larkin only wants to be traded to Minnesota, Vegas, or Florida, and the difference between the Flyers and those three teams is that those three teams are laden with stars and ready to win now.
Again, getting Larkin is a great idea for the Flyers, but they need to arm him with a supporting cast to make it worthwhile. Nothing we have seen in the past year suggests they can do that.
Matvei Michkov, who was supposed to be the team's franchise winger, is getting yanked around left and right and was badly misused in the last season under head coach Rick Tocchet.
It is still unclear if Trevor Zegras, the big addition from last offseason, is a center or winger at the NHL level. If he ultimately sticks as the latter, it doesn't help the Flyers' rebuild all that much.
In goal, the Flyers still have no backup goalie and are set to reward Dan Vladar with a massive contract extension after a late breakout year that was really the only good season of his NHL career to date.
In the end, the Flyers have no business getting into a bidding war with teams like Vegas, Minnesota, and Florida when they aren't really in a position to capitalize if they are successful.
Objectively, the best way to look at it is this: if the Flyers had Larkin, do they beat the Carolina Hurricanes in Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs?
The answer is an easy no, and that's fine. It's for the best.
The Hurricanes are a successful team because they acquire players who can play their system and fit what they are trying to do.
It didn't work with Mikko Rantanen, so they wisely pivoted and turned him into Logan Stankoven.
Here, the Flyers are still in the early stages of figuring out who those players are. Whether or not you believe they should be heading into the fourth year of Danny Briere and Keith Jones' reign is a different conversation.
If the Flyers aren't getting Larkin, they likely aren't getting Barzal either, and we can, by extension, rope Robert Thomas into that conversation.
The best way for the Flyers to evolve into Stanley Cup contenders is to rely on themselves and their own players, like Carolina did. That's the reality of the situation.
Larkin and Barzal were drafted 15th and 16th overall, respectively, so it's not an impossible ask.
Going forward, though, the Flyers will need to freshen their draft philosophy and make better value choices for better team-building.
If not, they'll never draft their own Larkin or trade for a Larkin-adjacent.