Dylan Larkin, the Detroit Red Wings’ homegrown captain, wants out.
Multiple reports on June 5 indicate Larkin’s discontent with the Red Wings has brewed over a few years.
According to ESPN’s Emily Kaplan, the tension can at least be traced back to Larkin’s 2023 contract extension, which ended up at eight years with an $8.7 million AAV.
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Quiet trade deadlines have done nothing to alleviate that tension, with 2025 resulting in Larkin speaking out about Detroit general manager Steve Yzerman’s conservative nature at the deadline.
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“We didn’t do anything,” Larkin told reporters during clean-out day last April. “We didn’t gain any momentum from the trade deadline. Guys were kind of down about it. So it would have bee nice to add something and bring a little bit of a spark on the ice and maybe a morale boost as well.”
In 2026, the Wings did make some deadline moves, but they were relatively tepid. On a team that had shown cracks following a hot start to the year, they added Justin Faulk from the Blues and David Perron from the Senators. With the Red Wings collapsing late in the season again, it’s clear Larkin, who will be 30 on July 30, doesn’t see the Red Wings’ roster management as a situation where he can win.
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Obstacles to Steve Yzerman making Dylan Larkin trade
Put two stubborn people into a room to make a decision, and it’s going to be hard to reach a compromise.
That’s the big problem here. Larkin’s no-trade clause gives him a lot of leverage over where he goes. But his long-term contract and the fact free agency’s center market is a desert gives Yzerman a lot of leverage over other teams. What you have is a triangle where it may be easy for two sides to come an agreement, but hard for the third.
Yzerman is not a GM who is going to settle. But the teams with assets to burn — particularly picks, which will have to factor into the deal — may not spur Larkin to waive his NTC.
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With the Red Wings missing a top-six center, regardless of whether he’s perceived as a first- or second-line center, this may be the move that kicks Detroit into an actual rebuild. But that has to start with getting the Larkin return right.
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What’s next for Steve Yzerman?
In truth, this is a big black eye on Yzerman’s tenure in Detroit. Larkin would have been 5 years old watching Yzerman hoist the cup against Carolina in 2002, making this akin to Matt Duchene asking out of Colorado when Joe Sakic was the GM.
That Duchene situation needs to be Yzerman’s blueprint. While the odds of the Red Wings getting a haul like the Avalanche got from the Senators are slim-to-none, Larkin’s request is a hard reset on the Red Wings. Rather than building a timeline around the 30-year-old Larkin, the Red Wings now turn their attention to 24-year-old Lucas Raymond and 25-year-old Moritz Seider.
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With that in mind, assets will be the name of the game. The plan to play piecemeal around Larkin didn’t work for Yzerman, and now he’s in a tough spot. For Sakic, it took over a year to grant Duchene his request, which came with a lot of bellyaching about how Duchene became a negative influence. Does Yzerman have that kind of time? Larkin’s no-trade clause expires after the 2026-27 season. But there have been murmurs that have swelled into a dull roar on the lack of progress Yzerman has made already.
All things told, everyone is just kind of… stuck. Yzerman is stuck with a tweener 1-2 center who doesn’t want to be there. Larkin is stuck on a roster he doesn’t believe he can win with. And Red Wings fans are stuck with a team that just saw its already questionable vibes take a nosedive.
Ultimately, the best way is, as always, forward. But to do that, someone is going to have to put ego aside. And with egos that are this big, that’s going to be a tall order.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will Steve Yzerman trade Dylan Larkin? What to know of captain’s request
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